


If I Say...

by GrizztoMySam



Series: Reunion Fics [3]
Category: The Society (TV 2019), grizzam - Fandom
Genre: Angst, College AU, Depression, Eventual Smut, Homophobic Slurs, M/M, Psychotic Behavior, SLOW FUCKIN BURN, Sexual Tension, Suicidal Ideation, and still hurtin, babies finding each other again, babies hurting, then not hurting anymore
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-27
Updated: 2019-10-13
Packaged: 2020-09-27 20:28:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 35,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20413828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GrizztoMySam/pseuds/GrizztoMySam
Summary: Sam and Grizz get close senior year of high school. Then Campbell gets involved...





	1. I Came Here Without A Choice

**Author's Note:**

> Mumford & Sons If I Say got me all bawling and inspired for this. I suggest listening to it before, while, and after reading. It helps get into the right headspace..which is a good angsty death. Sorry. I eat it for breakfast, lunch and dinner. And I like to share my meals.
> 
>   
Story will mostly be in Sam's POV.  
Although the song and it's meaning or my interpretation at least is mostly Grizz's.  
The first stanza of the song is mainly Sam's voice.

_I came here without a choice_  
_I'm sorry I could never thank you_  
_For saving me more trouble_  
_I didn't want any trouble_  
_If you were given one more chance_  
_Would you bring me back to life?_  
_Bring me back into the light_  
_Into the light_

* * *

His mind still reels when he lets his thoughts wander, sitting across Grizz during one of their study-hang days.

Not in a million years would he even have allowed his wildest imagination to come up with such a crazy narrative as Grizz and him being friends. 

Best of friends.

Some serendipitous thing the universe decided to gift him with on a rare generous occasion. A penance of sort for the fucked up shit he'd had to endure the last 17 years. 

The first day of Sam's junior year arrived like all the others. He'd briefly stopped at Becca's locker to exchange schedules and with bated breath and crossed fingers, they discovered they had a good handful of classes together, even gym.

_Thank the good Lord_\- Becca had signed, relief evident in her eyes.

Then he'd bid a chuckled goodbye as Becca mimed a gun to her temple, shuffling reluctantly to her first period, and him to his, walking into AP English Lit to find Grizz sat near the back of the class.

All 6.2 feet of him.

Hunched over in his desk that's barely keeping him in, furrowed brows scanning some paper the teacher must have handed out. His errant bangs fell from his topknot, which he kept tucking into his ear, with little success, and his feet were crossed over the ankles, a quirk he'd noticed Grizz often do when he was sitting. 

A mannerism of Grizz's when the older boy seemed jittery or anxious.

Not that Sam was guilty of obsessively watching everything Grizz did over the years. Cataloging into a memory book of sorts every nuance, laugh, and gesture. Connecting a hidden meaning to each.

It's an adorable picture and he swears his heart flips a little. Like it did for the cartoon characters he'd loved as a boy; literal heart shape jumping from their chest when they met their other half.

Not that this was anything of the sort.

Grizz is an unattainable boy who is straight and likes girls as Sam is gay and likes a boy with kind hazel eyes. 

But it's not a crime to look.

And having this ridiculous opportunity to maybe, finally, be able to interact with the taller, dark haired boy after so long leaves him breathless but brave as he sits himself behind Grizz.

The sweet, crooked, half smile that lifts a corner of Grizz's mouth and shows dimples as he turns to give Sam a packet from the teacher, makes Sam glad he did.

It was looking to be a good school year.

It turns out to be fucking stellar. 

Mrs. True, their English Lit teacher, seemed to be working in tandem with the Fates, who'd had a sudden influx of luck and happy things directed towards Sam.

The packet is a syllabus for the semester long project on any book in the curriculum that two partnered classmates, designated by Mrs. True because "We have to extend our horizons, good people, make new friends, yes?", can pick.

Sam is partnered up with Grizz.

He all but swoons, but decides on an answering grin to Grizz's warm smile.

Grizz upclose is something else. Leaves Sam fidgeting and unsteady, and Sam never fidgets.

Grizz is as sweet, charming, witty, smart as fucking hell, and everything else Sam had heard of or seen in passing. Just heightened and in 3D. 

4D really because Grizz also smell insanely good. Like freshly cut grass wet with spring rain, vanilla and some musk that makes his cheeks blush crimson. 

His favorite is Grizz's hands; pale and slightly freckled, marked with a faint line from the hair tie that's perpetually wrapped around his left hand, and delicately long fingers. It an almost strange contrast to Grizz's...bigness. 

But it fits; fits perfect and beautiful, like how Grizz can tackle and throw touchdowns but also love poetry and gardening. 

He itches to know how it feels to have his hand held by them. 

They get close.

Poring over **_Persuasion_**, after class and over the weekend can do that.He discovers they are both Austenites and its their favorite book, admitting to each other they are gluttons for angst and romance, and he's sure all this can't be coincidence. Thinks about soulmates, late at night when he indulges in replaying everything that had transpired during the day with Grizz. Indulges in absurd fantasies he knows can't come true.

They get close.

When Grizz suggests Sam teach him sign because he wants to incorporate it into their presentation and because, "I want to be able to talk to you in your language."

It leaves him breathless and squealing long after Grizz heads out for football practice.

And Sam never squeals.

The moment also chips a little at Becca's stubborn resolve of protective mother lioness ways. She'd told him from the get that he should keep his heart shut and cold towards the older boy because wanting Grizz is trouble and all kinds of hurt.

They get close.

Because Grizz now meets him most morning's at Becca's locker and occasionally have lunch together with Grizz's trio of bumbling amigos. The Guard as they've been affectionately called by everyone in school have come to adopt him and Becca into their fold; their actually good guys and find him hilarious.

He really can't remember them joining in on the taunts and bullying in school, now that he tries to recall. Although he'd heard them use the F word once or twice, but never directed to him. It was really just Campbell and Harry, the rich snobby senior who'd ironically become Campbell's lackey, freshman year. Something to do with Campbell's ever flowing supply of drugs. 

"They're my brothers, Sam, even if they're fucking idiots. Just ignorant really....I'd die for them" Grizz had shared one night after a sudden heavy talk about parental expectations, the future and school life.

They get inside-joke type close that begin to skirt the borders of what's considered platonic and _bro for life no homo_. Earns him sharp, side-eyed looks from Becca that he ignores.

The borders are oftentimes almost breached after shared glances from said inside jokes linger a little too long. When accidental and not so accidental touches leaves one or both with hitched breaths and slacked mouths and a sudden need to look away. When Grizz preens a little too much, biting his lip or darting a tongue out whenever Sam's reading his while he's speaks.

This brings up questions of Grizz's sexuality, that curl up like smoke into his thoughts at night.

Is he? And why is he holding back?

But the latter Sam can almost guess with clarity.

He doesn't know what hurts more. Grizz being straight and this is all some twisted game. Sam is a novelty and it's only fun and experimentation. Or he's gay and so stuck in the closet he's found another door and Sam isn't worth letting his walls down. 

Because despite the nights where they confided in each other, Sam knew there was so much more Grizz was keeping from him.

But now that he's got Grizz, even if it's not in all the ways he truly wanted, he'd suffer through the ugly, messy aftermath because he was not going to give up his time with the older boy.

No matter how long or brief.

Never.

It's the end of football season with the last game to be played the next night, and Grizz is on his back on the Sam's bedroom floor, haloed head of dark locks splayed on a pillow, long muscled legs propped up against Sam's bed, as he flips through a Notre Dame school brochure. Sam sits cross legged by his side, their thighs almost touching, his back against his bed, mindlessly swiping through Instagram. Studying and project work forgotten for the time being.

It's the type of companionable silence that Sam enjoyed with Grizz. No need for words or signing exchanged, both are still very present.

They'd just returned from celebrating over a salted caramel cone and hot cocoa, the cone for Sam because even in the cold of autumn his sweet tooth for ice cream won't relent. Celebrating because Grizz just got accepted into Notre Dame with a full ride football scholarship even though his grades were up to par and far beyond the capability of acceptance. He was going to double major in philosophy and environmental engineering and Sam was so proud his cheeks were starting to ache from smiling so much, lips threatening to split from the permanent grin he'd flash Grizz every time he'd look into his eyes, his own shining, elated.

Sam wants so badly, more than ever, to kiss him.

"Your the first person I told." Grizz had gasped, cheeks pink and ruddy and his topknot slipping, after running across the hall from the guidance counselors office once the last bell had rung.

His heart had soared and he'd thanked gravity for tethering him to the ground.

A giggle escapes his lips after he scrolls past a particularly funny meme, causing Grizz to tap his thigh, curious. He hands the phone over and Grizz guffaws. 

It's really not that funny but Grizz has been feeling light, a giddy drunkenness since the good news, and Sam watches amused as Grizz begins to snort.

He smirks and gets an evil idea. The kind he'll either really regret later or will thank his penchant for spontaneous bravado that he'd follow through. Because he's straddling a now surprised Grizz and that's canon ball attack kind of platonic borders breaching. But then he's tickling him by the sides near the sensitive bit by his ribs and Grizz laughs so hard he's crying and Grizz has somehow flipped them over because two can play this game.

And their kissing. 

It's fumbling and sloppy and a little too wet because Grizz can't seem to decide whether he wants his lips or tongue touching Sam's, but it's perfect.

His heart sings...He is!

It's goes forever but also ends so sudden that Sam chases after Grizz's lips, his head lifting up slightly with eyes still shut. A gentle lingering peck to his jaw and a soft nudge of Grizz's cheek against his, opens his eyes to Grizz's steady gaze that speaks of the culmination of sweet, wonderful moments since they started this thing between them. This friendship that's teetered over the edge for the longest time and have plunged into the depths of something Sam could only dare to dream of.

"You'll come to the game tomorrow?" Grizz signs what he can as Sam fills in the blanks and context, as he's moved them so Sam is sitting on his lap, his back to Grizz's chest, hands and fingers intertwined by the space by his navel. It really is nice as he'd thought it be to have his hands held in Grizz's.

"Of course, it's your last game." His left hand is brought to eager lips and kissed and he presses his back against Grizz's chest, a sudden want to purr.

"I have something to tell you tomorrow" Grizz tells him this before he heads home soon after. They're standing under the dimming porchlight that cast pretty shadows under Grizz's eyes. Eyes that are suddenly looking at everything else but him. Though shy he's still clutching Sam's hand, firm and assured. Perhaps the gravity of everything that has passed has finally caught up through the haze of teenage hormones.

"So secretive" Sam signs back, eyes teasing and shining.

Grizz only smiles, leaving him with a soft and lingering kiss on the cheek.

But life's a bitch. The fates, the universe, are really just cruel puppet-masters that love to play.

Because life is adverse at allowing people to be...happy.

Campbell comes into his room a while later, phone in hand. He's still on cloud nine, floating above his bed, sleep far from his grasp but the look on his brother's face, eyes with a calculated quiet gleam, a stark garish juxtaposition to the smile on his lips, has Sam sitting up, nerves electric and hackles raised.

"Stay away from Visser, fag." He says this without preamble. Says it as if he's telling his little brother goodnight and not to let the bed bugs bite.

"Why?" He's learned to converse in controlled tones, volume steady and low. That's how you speak to a rabid dog, muscle tensed and ready to pounce.

“Because the boy’s got a bright future. Football scholarship and all. Wouldn’t want to be the reason that gets taken away.”

“What are you talking about?” 

“Oh Sam, you sure are daft. Let me talk in laymen’s terms. You break this abomination of a relationship you have with Grizz, and I’ll make sure William behaves tomorrow night.” 

“Who the fuck is William.” The creeping dread that's needling up his spine dissolves his resolve. 

“Tsk Tsk, language, Samuel…..You see William is a boy that happens to love the little pills I give him every other week. Can’t get enough of them. He also happens to be on the opposing team playing against Visser tomorrow. A defensive linebacker… massive thing of a boy. One word from me. I don’t know…something about not having anymore of his favorite pills unless he does something to Grizz Visser during game night. Nothing big. A broken arm…leg.”

“I hate you!” He doesn’t so much scream it but breath it from every scorching vein in his body. Because he hates Campbell. With the very fiber of his being, that's turned his eyes black and his blood molten, he wants to take something sharp and stab it into the jugular of his brother’s neck. Watch him bleed out until there is nothing left but a sunken shell.

"I know...." Campbells nods his head, as if sympathetic, "Do what's right."

Sam flinches from the pat on his cheek by fingers that moves to his nape, grabs tight enough to cut skin and brings his face forward to view Campbell's phone scre. It's a snap video of Grizz's tongue down his throat as he lay writhing beneath him, legs bent at the knee and open, wrist pinned down by the older boy. 

It's looks dirty and salacious. Far from the sweet moment he remembers that it was.

“Why…” Sam whispers, defeated, to Campbell's retreating back.

He turns to look, blinks with empty eyes, smiling. "Because I can, little brother."

Sam doesn’t sleep that night. Hurls himself from bed at 4 in the morning to vomit everything he's ever eaten from the day before. Dry heaves until nothings left and cries silent wracking sobs as he grips the rim of the toilet bowl.

He manages to avoid Grizz during the day. Ignores the texts that pile up. Skips the one class they have together after feigning a stomach ache.

Even if it really wasn't pretend.

The ashy paleness of his complexion has the nurse rushing him into a spare resting room.

He arrives home and finally texts back: **_Sorry ate something weird after you left last night.. spent most of the day at the nurses office..I’ll see you at the game tonight._**

The answer text is immediate: **_Awe!! I could have kept you company…I can’t wait to see you._**

It leaves a tightness in his throat, so he closes his eyes and tries to disappear into the nothingness for a while. Tries not to feel.

He arrives at the school parking lot three hours before the start of the game; stays in his car for a bit, keeping the engine on idle. Watches out the window as a pigeon hops around a piece of rotting bread on the pavement.

He decides to rip off the bandaid, knows the wound hasn't clotted and he'll most likely bleed out, and sends a text asking Grizz to meet him under the bleachers before the game.

**_Sure no problem. I missed you all day. _**The eagerness from Grizz text is palpable. Pictures his face all bright eyed, nose scrunching in that adorable Grizz way, eyes crinkled at the corners with a grin.

He wants to run, far away where no one can hear him and he can scream until his lungs burn out and his eyes no longer know how to cry.

Grizz is waiting for him, decked out in his football uniform, hair in that damn topknot that drives him crazy. He’s all anxious energy and beauty. Sam has to look down pretending to pick at lint from his sweatshirt. Blinks hard and steels himself.

“Hey, you ok?” Grizz has ambled forward from his lean against the wall, eyes concerned, arms offered to hold.

Grizz is going to see right through this whole thing.

He walks pass him and leans against the opposite wall. The worry on Grizz’s face cuts at his heart with a blunt knife.

“You sad?…Last game and all.” He’s stalling but his mind is blank.

Grizz doesn’t push and walks right up to him. So close that if he looks up from his gaze that’s now level with Grizz’s chest, all he’d have to do for a kiss was rise up slight on his toes because Grizz has leaned down tilting his chin up. “I was going to wait until after, had some things planned, but I really want to kiss you right now and I need to say this first.”

And Sam is crying because life is fucking unfair.

‘I love–”

“Stop….you don’t” he signs and sobs, pushing the older boy away.

Grizz stands steady, grabbing his face, confusion laced with an unease that has Grizz frantically searching his eyes.

“Sam–what is this?…Last night–”

“Exactly…last night. Was a mistake.” He won’t look Grizz in the eye, instead focusing on his lips.

“No!! It wasn’t!”

“Yes…this thing can’t happen. You don’t want me like that..feel for me like that. You think you do but you’ll wake up tomorrow..or few days later and realize all this won’t be worth it.”

Grizz roughly shakes his head as he follows the words, forcing Sam to look him in the eye, hands firm but gentle as they wipe his tears away.

“No” It’s a sharp exhaled declaration,”I’m been feeling this for a while now. And I know you feel the same way–”

“Don’t you dare! You’re telling me how I feel now? What? Because your Grizz Visser?? Star football player..who fucking quotes shit like your from the dead poet’s society? Got girls practically salivating to get you to look at them. And me..the fucking gay deaf kid. Poor little Sam Eliot. You must think I’m so desperate. Pathetic enough to jump at the chance to have a piece of you..huh?? I’m probably some pet project!…Check off your box for humanitarian electives.”

Grizz stays quiet, frozen but visibly flinches and swallows thickly at the words that are hurled in a slurred deluge from Sam’s mouth.

“News flash, Grizz, this might be a shocker. Rejection is probably a foreign concept but I. Do. Not. Want. You!!” he spits it out, tries to sign with trembling fingers that wish to rip Campbell from limb to limb.

He wants to wash his mouth out with bleach.

“This isn’t you...Something must have happened last night because this isn't you. I don’t believe a God damn word, coming out of your mouth.” It’s a hushed sentiment, but weighted and fierce, as Grizz drops his hands from his cheek, into balled fists by his side and the sudden dullness in Grizz’s wet gaze is starting to scare Sam.

But he loves Grizz. Fuck.

He really really does.

And he’ll hurt Grizz first before Campbell can touch him.

And Campbell hurting Grizz scares him more.

“Stay the fuck away from me.”

He leaves without looking back.

There's a fight the next day before the ring of first period.

The news bounces against the white washed concrete walls and echoes into the metaled locker doors.

"Grizz and Campbell!"

"In the courtyard!"

"He's fucking him up good!"

Sam drops his books back into his locker, almost breaks his neck over a fallen paper announcement on the floor, as he races to the courtyard by the football field, pushing against the throng that's running the same way.

He reaches the front of the blood hungry mob of loud encouragement, egging on with wild eyes and spit, towards the two figures grappling on the ground. Grizz has Campbell pinned, a hand fisted into the fabric over his chest the other hand throwing punches into his swelling and bleeding face. Campbell has a maniacal grin on his mouth as blood drips from the corner, both fists pummeling into Grizz's side. 

Sam stops at the edge where grass meets cement and yells, "STOP!!!!!!"

He's been told by Campbell a deaf person screaming is like a banshee shrieking, like nails on a chalkboard. The way the crowd cowers and covers their ears tell him it's true. 

Grizz has turned his neck quick towards the sound pushing himself up to stand, Campbell forgotten on the ground. His left eye reddish purple and swollen shut, a cut on his lower lip split further open as he cries out, "Sam!"

"He's the reason, isn't he?! He won't admit--But it's him isn't it??" Grizz grabs him by the waist, digging into the line of skin beneath the hem of his shirt, desperate eyes pulling confessions Sam wants badly to give him.

But he pushes back, pushes with clawed fists against Grizz chest, to let him go.

"No!..My God why can't you just leave it? It's me...all me! Not fucking Campbell!"

The crowd is thrumming now with pointed fingers. Mouths foaming with waggling tongues.

"Listen to the Fag, Visser. Don't want you to get tainted..I think it's contagious." 

And when Grizz moves, with lightening speed towards Campbell once more, Sam is faster.

Sam cuts him off with a slap to the cheek that whips his head back. "Don't touch my fucking brother." He grits out with poison.

The guilt is immediate, shocking Sam almost to his knees. The desire to retract everything, rewind it all to the moment where he'd decided to sit behind Grizz in English. 

If he'd never, then all this would have never.

But its the look that stares back, that becomes etched into his memory. Biting down with sharp teeth, refusing to let go.

That will haunt him. Forever, he thinks.

It's betrayal, surprise and hurt.

Not a physical hurt, although the slap must have stung, sharp and cutting. It's the kind that digs deep beneath, skin and tissue, beneath muscle and bone and into the core of it all, consuming and burning into ash everything that beats and hums with life.

This time it's Grizz that turns to walk away.

* * *

_Show me your hands_  
_Are they cleaner than mine?_  
_Show me your face_  
_Did you cross the line?_  
_Show me your eyes_  
_They any drier than mine?_  
_Your soul survives_  
_But peace, you'll never find._


	2. I Didn't Want Any Trouble

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grizz is hurt, but would rather be angry. And his brothers in arms on the football field will defend him to the death against Sam Eliot. 
> 
> Where things get really really dark for Sam the last remaining months before Grizz graduates and leaves...perhaps forever.  
I repeat it gets very dark good readers...suicidal ideation trigger and NSFW moments.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've gone into a Mumford & Sons kick because they know my angsty whore self so well. Listen to Broken Crown por favor.
> 
> Perfectly conveys Grizz's anger, me thinks.
> 
> And if ya want to really die...listen to RIOPY (thanks Skam France)- I Love You..during the prom scene and after. Sorry in advance.
> 
> Also warning to all, esp Grizz stans, you might come to hate the Grizz I'll be depicting but let's remember that when he was hurt in the show he got downright asshole level towards Sam. The boy has a temper but it goes with his passion for everything. He gives his all, feels a whole lot. And the way he thinks Sam dropped him like trash, putting Campbell over him of all people in this fic, it's warranted. Just a forewarning good readers. If it's not your cup of tea totally get it.

_Touch my mouth_

_And hold my tongue_

_I'll never be your chosen one_

_I'll be home, safely tucked away_

_<strike></strike>You can't tempt me if I don't see the day._

_\------------------------------------------------------- _

When Sam was nine he'd broken his arm in two places after Campbell poured cooking oil on their tiled foyer floor.

He was pretending the floor was ice so he could skate without having to wait for the town lake to freeze over.

The look on his mother's face, how quickly she veiled her fear into empathy and mercy, tells Sam it's far from true. 

The pain had been excruciating.

Like being burned from the inside out by fire-lit barbed wire. The snap of bone he had felt sent his head spinning faint, the want to spill everything from his gut strong and pungent. It had gurgled and he did. Campbell in his fogged periphery, stood satisfied.

He'd sported a cast which Becca had monopolized with doodles and Dr. Seuss quotes, because at nine she was already about empowerment and saving the world. It left little room for others in his third grade class.

"Sam's my best-friend, not yours!"

And she was right. Unfortunately so. Nine year old kids in a small bigoted town of white collared moneyed folk didn't understand how to accept different. So it hardly mattered because his cast was ignored and uncared for.

But he had Becca and she'd been enough.

His mom and dad had become especially attentive not that they weren't already, ever since he'd contracted meningitis at four and came back from the hospital to a silent world.

When they'd learn with him how to talk with sign, the world comes back into focus. But it soon becomes unbearable when Campbell learns too and saturates it with hate.

Campbell's satisfied smirk didn't last long. 

The pain he feels now is much worse.

It's breathing with shards of glass in his lungs. Like shrapnel embedded into the flesh of his ribs.

Because breathing means waking up again and the days are too long and everything is fucked.

Sam learns that Grizz is more angry than hurt. He'd channeled it by playing the winning touchdown for his last game the night Sam wished to forget. 

Erase from history or travel back in time when watching Grizz from a far had been enough.

The gossip mill, comprised mostly of Thirsty Girls After Visser Dick, as Becca loved to call them, say he'd been especially physical that night. Proven his namesake true. 

"I'd pay good money to have him tackle me like that." A high pony-tailed blond declares, groaning and eyes rolling back, vulgar in her chewing and smacking of gum.

Sam wishes he couldn't read lips.

An angry Grizz is also cruel. 

Cruel in his passive willingness to turn a blind eye towards the sudden aggression from The Guard.

Sam had initially reasoned Grizz's quiet was because he was physically not there, being suspended for two weeks after the fight with Campbell. But when he returns, his left eye and cheek healed to a faint brownish yellow, The Guard continues and he does nothing to stop them.

They're out for blood.

Sam Eliot has hurt one of their own and they won't stop until they have his head on a silver platter.

It starts out as little things.

Ostracized from eating in the cafeteria during lunch. 

Not so subtly being pushed against the wall or lockers as he walks to and from class. 

Being addressed as Fag or Faggot.

It quickly grows into threats. 

An avenging Clark is terrifying.

"If I even catch you looking at Grizz...Your fucking meat. They'll be scraping your insides from the floor for weeks." 

That had been especially tough to take, remembering how Clark had been so careful in enunciating his speech when Sam's was around. Made sure he had extra of his mama's chocolate chip muffins.

"You have to try this Sam, they're so good!!" Signing what he could, eyes sparkling so sweet.

He'd liked Clark the best among the trio, endeared by his ignorant naivety. And in another time, if he was not so consumed by Grizz, Clark could have had his heart.

The lining of his cheek grows raw from biting on them so much--weeks of it. Soon there'd be a hole. But it stopped the tears from falling while everyone watched.

But he can't fault them. He, the instigator of all this fuckery. He, that must lay down, belly offered, to play the martyrs part.

He'll live the lie. Be the villain of the story, that must be chased away by pitchforks and an angry mob that so readily believes the lies Campbell's manipulates and spreads.

His forked tongue spins a tale of Sam being the disgusting, sex crazed faggot who took advantage of Grizz Visser's charity of friendship. 

"Saw him forcing his tongue down the Grizz's throat. Nasty shit!"

They eat it up like ravenous pigs. 

It punctures and cuts the skin above his heart, how Grizz keeps silent, never denying.

Grizz also drops English Lit and its with no real consequence because he'd taken the class just for kicks, an elective of sort having surpassed all requirements for graduation. Sam learns of this days after Grizz's expulsion. Mrs. True is sympathetic and allows him to turn in his part and present via recorded video.

It's a small mercy not having Grizz in class anymore. Doesn't know how he'd manage sitting behind him.

Hadn't thought of these small details.

Doesn't know proper decorum for interaction with someone who hated you but you loved fiercely.

It's a struggle finishing up the project.

The ghost of Grizz haunted every place they'd spent time together working on it, loud with remnant echoes.

Echos of the time when he'd felt particularly sentimental and soft and needy. 

"I wish I could hear your voice" He'd blurted out after annotating Captain Wentworth's line: _You pierce me. I am half agony, half hope, _Grizz sitting across from him on the floor, their knees almost touching, his own copy of Persuasion dog eared and kept open by a forefinger on his lap. 

He'd put down the book, reaching for Sam's hand and placing it near his throat, palms spread open and pressed into his skin. It was slightly cold yet warm, smooth like marble.

"Hi, Sam" Grizz lips spoke, dimples present, the slight bob of his Adam's apple moving against Sam's fingers with a faint vibration. "Stop fucking around so we can get ice cream."

If he hadn't then, he knows now how he could have fallen even deeper than he already was.

The town library, the coffee shop that had the best salted caramel cone, his bedroom floor.

He tells himself they are merely locations, of mortar and brick and giving them meaning and memories is a dumb, pathetic human indulgent. 

But he avoids the corner nook by the poetry section, finding an empty desk by the library door and sleeps in the basement guestroom at home or at Becca's when he can.

Becca gives him fortitude.

It helps him from breaking when he feels like he now walks on thorny stilts that bleed his feet and a false move could cause him to fall and splinter into a million pieces, parts of him scattered far by the wind as so he could never be put back together again.

She does not question when he insists on wearing a steel mask that laughs and smiles but is spiked on the underside, like an iron maiden, riddling him with holes and pricks his eyes whenever he happens to pass Grizz in the halls. He keeps his head down but feels the noose that's connected to Grizz, tighten around his neck a little more, after every scowl or hard look from the older boy. An ugly and mean imitation of the boy he dreams of every night.

Every night he affords himself time where the water is not so murky or muddy and he's not drowning. Where he suspends in moments of once a upon a time he loved and was loved by a gentle grizzly bear who turned into a boy by a tender first kiss. Tamed and sweet then. A safe port he felt he could seek before circumstance born from a poisoned mind corrupts and infects the goodness. Has turned him from human back to wild angry bear of gnashing teeth.

She does not reach for answers because she knows him through and through, knows he's not capable of the slander from Campbell's sick mouth, but she will fight for him with bared fangs if he allows. 

Leaves him be, to choose to continue this charade that wrings his heart raw because it'll keep Grizz safe and Campbell away.

Because Campbell is nothing but constant, reminding him if he ever thinks of telling Grizz the truth it will be more than broken bones.

She shields him as best as she can from what she hears.

But she fails at keeping the recent news that waves across school like a riptide.

Grizz had just asked Carla to prom.

Carla is brunette curls and caramel skin and a mind sharp and smart enough to get into Harvard pre-med. She's also beautiful and fits just right, curled into Grizz side as he'd parade her between classes, his arm wrapped tight around her middle. She's welcomed and taken in readily by The Guard. They laugh at her jokes and Clark makes sure she gets an extra piece of his mama's chocolate muffins.

"They're a perfect match...they look good together" He'd signed to Becca, as they sat out by tree lined patch of grass near the school's parking lot where the lower members of the school's hierarchy or the resident pariahs had lunch. 

The pointed look she'd shot back turn suddenly soft. 

A pissed Becca he could handle. A sarcastic Becca he thrived on. A Becca that felt sorry for him made him want to scream.

Don't pity me...not now.

"What??" He hoped it didn't come out as sharply as he feels it on his tongue. 

"Nothing," she blinks turning to look away, signing, "let's go, the bell's rung."

As they head to class he tamps down the bitter bile that's suddenly thick in his throat when he sees them crowded by Carla's locker. Sees the arm around her waist and tries to forget the feeling that rushes his skin when he'd been held like that once.

Remembers arms, strong and warm, from shoulders of chiseled marble that made him feel delicate and small.

Wants to slam his phone down onto the ground when he receives a text from Campbell.

**You did good, little brother. Look how much happier he looks, now.**

Somehow, Becca persuades him to go to prom with her. But it's hard to say no when Beccatron comes forth. She's flared nose, stomping feet and "I won't let up until you do I what say". The girl's resolve was something else.

A new tradition had commenced where juniors and seniors would have a joint prom celebration. Sam thinks it's just budget cuts and nothing dramatic or sentimentally romantic as the faculty present it as such.

"It's going to be packed, you won't even know he's there" 

"I don't know what your talking about and that's not the reason I don't want to go." He's fighting the whole process, his signing having more bite these days, but he's rifling through dress shirts in the men's department at the mall two town's over because Becca wants to find something vintage and unique.

"Why do you want to go?" He'd accused, "You hate this social gathering shit."

"I do but it's a once in a life time thing and I want to get all glammed up and pretty."

"It's our junior prom, we still have another next year." He'd signed dead-panned, irritation welling up. He was walking on dangerous ground, he knew this. But he welcomes the harder emotions that he's starting to feel as of late. Grabs at it with tight fists. Refuses to feel sad or pathetic any longer. 

"Shut up Sam...just fuckin go and flaunt me, damn it!"

"Bitch."

"Your sexy bitch, Love."

They make a striking couple. Becca in a black, strappy mini that gives of a 90s vibe, gold hooped earrings and her long chocolate locks in a dramatic side swoop that ends in a flirty high pony. He's opted out of a full suit instead choosing a peachy coral vest over a crisp white button up and a rust and emerald hued, multicolored striped tie. The ensemble brings out the starling blue of his eyes.

"Gorgeous!" Mrs. Gelb had signed, trigger happy with her picture snapping that leaves stars in their eyes and half of the snaps with Becca and Sam sporting squinty eyed grimaces.

The mirror likes him, as he straightens his tie. His eyes are particularly blue tonight and he'll agree he looks good.

He'll focus on how glowy and pretty and happy Becca is as she reaches for his hand that clutches the lavender rose corsage he'd surprised her with, guiding him to place it around her wrist.

He'll focus on the good things and forget that Grizz will be dancing and holding someone else tonight.

Forget the images that would play and taunt him in his damn head that sometimes had the sudden urge to go to dark places. Forget images so clear at times if he reached out to touch he just might. Images that would not relent, keeping him from sleep. Images of Grizz and Carla and--

He'll forget what's no longer important and remember what is.

When they arrive by the arched entryway to the gym, twinkle lights hanging like curtains with blue and gold streamers, the bass of whatever song is booming loud chatters against his teeth and in his chest. Becca is flushed from the several sips she'd already taken from the flask she'd smuggled into her mini purse, booty bumping to the beat he feels, grabbing onto his waist, as she's eager to get on the dance floor. 

He takes the flask and takes a long pull that burns his throat bitter and elicits a spluttering cough, to which Becca weakly pats his back as her face twists in a comical representation of her normal laugh. He joins her, hunching over giggling and he's feeling light.

Nothing can touch him tonight. He can fly up like a kite and if he never comes down it's all the better. 

There is no Campbell. No Carla. No Grizz. 

Just him and Becca and liquid fire that's burning away the images and memories he wants to forget.

It's dark inside the gym, barely lit by the fairy lights hanging from everything and everywhere. 

And it's perfect.

He sways, and jumps, and undulates his hips to the beat that starting to thrum in the back of his head and Becca along with the other faces around him have become a muddled blur like an impressionistic painting on neon acid. 

A trickle of sweat travels from his nape and into the line of his back and soon his vest fits a little too tight and the air is starting to stifle and choke.

He motions for Becca to follow him as he inches his way back to the edge of the dance floor, moving through flailing limbs, until they've reached the archway again. 

_I need air, it's getting too hot,_ he signs sloppy and languid. _Stay, I'll be right back._

She almost argues, turning her body towards the exit, but he pushes her back gently insisting and she yields. 

_I'm coming out if your not back in 10._

It's firm, more threat than promise, finger roughly making their point against the lapel of his vest as she trudges back to the dance floor, quickly picking up again her rhythmic gyration against Kelly Aldrich, Harry's ex, who he knows Becca has a massive crush on and just might return the affections with how enthusiastic she was gyrating back.

He smiles a little giddy, a little insane, and he needs another swig from Becca's flask but she's too far away and he wants to breathe. So he ambles out on shaky legs through the back entrance of the gym that opens into the football field, the crisp spring air hitting him sharp, heightening and clearing his sight and mind. His legs keep walking, his vest somehow taken off and thrown somewhere he doesn't really care to know, and he's reached the little walkway under the bleachers that will take him to the spot where he'd fucked it all up because he'd had to.

He pauses as the numbness starts to wane, but something is stubborn in its pull and he enters. 

His eyes take a second to adjust in the dark that's lit by filtering twilight through the slats in the bleachers above, and he sees a figure against the concrete wall that anchors the elevated seats safe and steady to the ground. 

He walks closer and spots dark hair against the grey of the concrete, held up haphazardly into a tiny knot, and it's harsh clammy dread that truly wakes him up from his hazy stupor because the figure is not alone.

Grizz has his neck exposed, pale smooth expanse of it beckoning, as he arched from the wall his head thrown back, eyes shut tight in some pained state of ecstasy, a hand up finding purchase onto the wall behind him, the other on the shoulder of the figure on her knees. It's a brunette with curls flowing free down her back, silver strapless dress wrinkled and muddied. Carla has taken him in her mouth. 

Sam doesn't move. His eyes follow the sporadic and stuttering panting of Grizz's chest. Hypnotized by the clenching of his jaw as he bites down hard on his bottom lip, trying to muffle what Sam assumes are moans. 

It shames him, how quick he gets hard, how he wants desperately to lick up and taste the slick from Grizz's neck and place his hands where his pulse is until he feels Grizz come undone. 

He must have made a sound because hazel eyes are now staring into his. Startled at first then grow dark, and cold.

Watch me. Don't look away. You must atone, this is you reparation. Look at what you could have had.

He can't look away even if he tried.

The muscles of his feet and every inch of him have atrophied, his sight riveted on Grizz unwavering gaze back. He watches, fingers digging into the side of this thighs, nails cutting through the fabric and into skin that has turned into stone. The pain reminds him to breath, wet salt falling from his cheeks hitting his lips. He watches Grizz's hips thrusting faster and faster until his teeth is bared as he finally comes with a snarl, veins straining in his neck; eyes still on Sam.

And he runs.

He runs until he's reached his front steps. Stumbles across the threshold straight to the medicine cabinet in his parents bath. The house is empty, Campbell at some house party bypassing prom and his parents away on business. He'd spent the weekend at Becca's. 

He lines up the white pills into neat piles onto the cold tiles that smart his naked feet, as he rocks back and forth, knees crossed, back hunched over.

One by one, little things they are. Smaller than the nail of his tiny finger. Hardly harmless at the look of them.

He only really wants to sleep. 

He's been so tired and it's been so long since he was able to.

They're white like the tic-tacs that his grandma used to slip into his tiny hands when he got antsy during church, pudgy little legs swinging back and forth and kicking into the pew ahead. He missed her terribly, remembers hearing her sing to him before he could no longer. A sweet soprano and songs of blue-birds and sweethearts meeting under spring rain.

Maybe he'd get to hear her lullabies again.

He reaches with a shaky hand and grabs them all, lifting them up to his--

His hand is slapped away, harsh and stinging, scattering the pills everywhere, far into the nooks and cracks of the bathroom floor.

Becca is grabbing his wrists, mouth open in a wail, shaking him until he's sobbing into her chest, both in an awkward embrace on the floor.

"You have to tell me Sam...Tell me what to do. What do I do? Why this?!?" She doesn't bother signing, her hands now latching tight onto sides of his neck, forcing him to look at her.

"There's nothing." He tries to turn from her, no longer wants to see how her eyes are red and desperate, mouth trembling in their words through her hiccuped gasps. But she holds firm, small hands stronger than they look.

"No...see you can't do this. You can't leave me!" 

"Why not?"

She starts at the admission, eyes welling up once more. "Love, I'm pregnant."

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

_The pull on my flesh was just too strong_

_It stifled the choice and the air in my lungs_

_Better not to breathe than to breathe a lie_

_'Cause when I open my body, I breathe a lie_

_But in this twilight, our choices seal our fate._


	3. The Innocence in Your Face Bled Without a Trace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 9 months later....
> 
> Will be divided in two parts. Events leading to and the start of Sam's freshman year in college.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Italics will pertain to anyone signing. 
> 
> Still touches dark but hopefully not as intense..there is hope people. But angst will still be prevalent.
> 
> Listening selection will include Mumford & Sons- Hopeless Wanderer and Olafur Arnalds- Fyrsta
> 
> Especially listen to Fyrsta through out your read if ya want to immerse in and all that jazz.  
Posting unbetaed..but whats new. So excuse the craziness of it all.  
Enjoy:D

_And I will remember the words that you said_

_Left a clouded mind and a heavy heart_

_But I was sure we could see a new start_

_But hold me fast, Hold me fast_

_'Cause I'm a hopeless wanderer_

_And hold me fast, Hold me fast_

_Cause I'm a hopeless wanderer_

_ I will learn, I will learn to love the skies I'm under_

\----------------------------------------------

~ Part I

Eden's baby head fits just so, cradled in Sam's palm, her crown of fawny fuzz feels like that of a peach's. He's so afraid to drop her he stands still, spine straight and muscles taut as she sleeps content, tiny bowed lips in the sweetest pout.

He'd almost never got to meet her. 

_I trust you, you won't break her- _Becca signs, lulling his forearm with a brush of fingers.

_She's beautiful. You did good, Mama._\- He signs back, tears flowing free, in wonderment.

Becca thanks him with a watery smile, face flushed red and wet tendrils of hair against her temple from exertion of the last hours, Sam thought was far to many, kissing the back of his free hand.

Sam learns to breath again.

The shattered glass in his lungs dissolving into sand that's washed away by Eden's tears, her cries reminding him he needs to live.

He needs to fight the demons that now lie dormant but still wait in the corners of his mind, because they never were fully exorcised. They are hungry to snatch him back into the deep dark that once he had been too weak to resist, but he must now because he's finally remembered how much Becca loves him and soon Eden will too.

In all his selflessness he'd been selfish. 

And he is still healing. 

But Eden helps. Helps with her grabby hands and adorable gummy smiles, eyes so big that is all Becca and bright that make him feel wanted and needed; purposeful and brave.

He'll teach her how to sign, to laugh and play, to love strong and true.

He'll protect her to his last, a pledge he whispers with lips softly against her cheeks that smell of sweet milk and hope.

_If I hadn't found you in time...would you have gone through with it?_ \- It's an hesitant question, Becca's hands slow in signing the words, but he'd promise complete transparency since that night and her him, although Eden's father remains a nameless and faceless thing which he respects. Understands now her need to celebrate prom despite how it went against all the principles that made Becca, Becca. It would be her last at being young and carefree and she wanted to spend it with him. He'd offered to tell everyone he was the father, to stop the ugly labels from surfacing. Damn small town and its bigotry.

"No more sacrifices, Love." She'd insisted. "You being here is enough."

_Yes - _He signs it to the wooden floor, thumb and forefinger picking at the shag carpet in Becca's room, a hand pushing to rock Eden in her bassinet, sat between them.

Her hug is tight, a little too tight he almost wheezes out a laugh. But it promises she'll kill him first if he tries it again.

When he tells her everything, the murder in her eyes almost blinds. He knows, if given a chance, when she'd finished with Campbell there'd be nothing left. Not even carrion for the birds.

She wants a piece of Grizz as well. Is not shy in her wild and maniacal illustration of ripping off toenails and a vat of boiling oil, causing a giggle to bubble up. It feels good, like meeting once again an old forgotten but close friend.

"He was in no fault that night, he was never mine and what I had to do was fucked up." His laugh cracks, needling at the corners of his eyes and he bites his lips from quivering, "I still love him."

It softens the harsh twisted line of her mouth.

"Oh, Sam..." It's a first concrete admission of love, but she'd already known. 

Campbell is caught selling cocaine to a minor, two days after his graduation. He is eighteen, of legal age so he is convicted as such.

Five to ten years. 

His parents, in all there intentional dilution of Campbell's sickness, can't pray or pay or turn a blind eye, away this particular indiscretion.

He hurts for them, still. For years he'd tried to understand there stance on things. Swallowed his anger after they'd reason away that Campbell didn't mean to slam the door and almost cut his finger off.

Didn't mean to kill his pet canary, Jack. 

Being a parent is difficult. He knew their journey was edged and rocky; always grey, never black and white. And it was harder still having a deaf child and a psychotic one, who'd needed them more.

And he knew blood is blood, thick and coursing and pulsing with a connection that would forever flow. Saw the fierce look that sometimes flashed in Becca's eyes when she rocked Eden to sleep. Campbell would always be his mother's son, and despite it all, she loved him.

So he rejoices in silence. Cries tears he is able to finally cry, freely and open, Becca holding and anchoring him steady.

The universe is further benevolent because prom had been two days before graduation and he never sees Grizz or everyone in his circle again.

The last year of high school is with a peace he grabs at greedy and holds on tight. It's the type of peace that's filled with an emotional Becca, comprised mostly of different levels of cranky and irrationality because she's going to "poop all over" her obstetrician. He meets it with laughter and jokes which goads her sarcastic wit that's made them such a pair to be reckoned with and he feels like himself again.

It's also fragile and threatens to blow away by the faintest of winds.

His dreams are stubborn and still floods with Grizz, which he tries to forget when he wakes. It's filled with everything he could have done differently to change the course of their narrative.

He blames human error for forgetting to shut his bedroom door the night Campbell caught them, locking it as he usually does. Grizz knew enough from the things he shared about Campbell, leaving out the more gory details because he did not want pity just understanding.

Damned human error for submitting to temptation and choosing to sit behind Grizz.

He had not been brave that day. He had been careless and hormonal and...in love.

Had forgotten to think of the possible consequences, forgotten to think ten steps ahead, forgotten the conditioning of being Campbell's brother to assess and analyze before acting.

He'd forgotten because Grizz always muddled his thinking.

What he refuses to remember, washing with lye and bleach, rinsing and repeating a hundred times over because its etched so permanently into the DNA of his memory, is prom night and what transpired under the bleachers. 

As far as he's concerned, it never happened.

Because that's what the darkness wants. It's a sumptuous feast that will feed and gorge for resurrection and he won't travel down that road again. 

He has Eden now and Becca will follow him to Hades to bring him back if he does. 

He still loves Grizz, perhaps as much as he does Becca and Eden. But he will forget him.

If it means living, he will forget.

They graduate with honors, Becca's pregnancy never once stopping her from reaching her goals. 

"This baby is a gift not a fucking hindrance" the time she was so pregnant but still up and studying for midterms that Sam had told her to quit it already or she'll either give herself or him a stroke.

They're both accepted to Columbia, her undecided but leaning towards an art major and anything to do with photography and him with a bachelor's in psychology and social work. He wants to delve and dissect into the human brain. The psychosis of Campbell had always intrigued him in an academic way. To maybe help those with mental illness and those affected by such people had given him a reason to why he'd been given a monster instead of a brother. It helped him feel not so cursed. Social work because he wanted to help deaf children in vulnerable and problematic circumstances. He'd been there, understands through experience and he wished it not on anyone.

When Becca offers ice cream sundaes at the coffee shop near school to celebrate he declines so sharp and sudden she'd flinched, brows furrowed in question. But he diverts quickly and she lets it go, suggesting a movie instead with pizza and some good old, ice-cold beer because she finally can.

Becca decides to defer for a year until Eden turns one, but opts to move into the city to stay with her aunt residing near campus. She wants the acclimation to be gradual with Eden because it will be their permanent home during her college career. Sam is elated by the decision, knowing his freshman year of college won't be as far away from Becca and Eden as he'd first thought.

_Eden won't let you leave anyways._

Her chubby fists grab for him, her mouth twisting into a beginnings of a wail and he knows its true.

The night before move in day on campus finds himself still scrambling to pack everything into the 4X4 boxes he'd gotten from the local warehouse store. The room is almost empty, his light grey walls, stark and naked with patches of slightly brighter grey paint of different shaped rectangles and squares where his posters and framed pictures had hung. He has yet to tackle his walk in closet and under his bed, exhaustion already nipping and latching onto his nerves, the collar of his shirt has a ring of sweat and his movements have grown slow and lethargic. But they were to leave at the crack of dawn the next day so he pushes on.

He'd gotten a step ladder propped by the corner of his closet where a shelf hung by the ceiling that held several boxes and knickknacks still stacked, dusty and shadowed. He reaches on his toes for a dark blue box he can't remember is contents but startles back when he sees the label, almost falling from his teetering step.

**GV** it reads in black marker on a sticky note. 

With shaky hands he reaches for it. He needs to clear his room, because tomorrow will be the beginnings of a future of good things and if he doesn't get rid of this damn box heavy with too many things he'd put away to forget, it might never come into fruition. And he'd already come so far.

He means to bring it straight to the trash but it slips from his grip as he steps off the last rung of the ladder and drops it on the floor with everything inside spilled out.

A minute passes and maybe more as he stands looking down and not really looking until he's somehow gotten on his knees gathering the contents closer towards him.

It's Polaroids, hundreds of them, they'd taken of each other and together, because Grizz had a penchant for vintage things and loved the exposure a Polaroid camera gave. 

"Kind of ...romantic..you know?" Grizz had blushed then, hiding his face quick behind the camera as he took another snap of Sam's face contorted like a monkey. 

There's a picture of Grizz all miffed and nose wrinkled, with an ashen white face from flour Sam had thrown at him when they'd retired from studying and decided to try a new carrot cake recipe Grizz had gotten from his baker aunt.

There's one where Sam is beaming with a tongue out and drowning in Grizz's leather jacket because it'd be "adorable--I mean hilarious..you'r so fucking short Sam, damn!"

And there's one of them together, taken by Becca, who'd side-eyed after, so long he'd thought it stay permanent. He'd jumped on Grizz's back while the taller boy was sitting at the edge of the Becca's bed, putting his worn white sneakers on as the trio were headed out to the movies. He'd meant it in jest, trying to achieve what, he doesn't even know now, because Grizz made him stupid spontaneous and always in need to have some excuse to touch the older boy, when Grizz had surprised him by grabbing the underside of his knees by the crook of both elbows and stood up to carry him piggy back style, spinning them both around so fast he'd giggled silly and thought he'd hurl. His tight grip on the fabric of shirt above Grizz's chest remembers the wild pound of Grizz's heart. 

And at the bottom of the pile is a sheet of lined paper, torn from a spiraled notebook. He skims his finger over the scroll, neat cursive written by a left hand.

**Dear Sam, Will you be Grizz's friend?**

**Circle: Yes or No**

The yes is circled, bold and several times over.

A tear drops and makes the circle bleed out into the No.

\------------------------------------

Part II

The start of move in day had gone smoothly enough, a two car caravan because Becca thought it'd be perfect to move to the city as well. Becca drove her car while Sam kept Eden preoccupied in the back seat with games of peak-a-boo and a readied bottle and watching over when she finally lolled to sleep because he drove like her "92 year old Papop" and she hated having anyone touching and readjusting her seat.

The woes of being short.

His parents followed close behind in his black hatchback, packed full to bursting with cardboard boxes and suitcases and the blue box of Polaroids stuffed way in the bottom.

Because he didn't have the heart to burn it and throwing it away, even if it was torn into a million shredded pieces, meant it would be out there in some land fill or scattered by the wind and he didn't want to share those captured moments even to the dirt of the earth. 

He'd keep it nearby...just closed and never opened.

They drop Becca, Eden and their car off at her aunt's quaint brownstone, a five minute walk from campus. Gideon Gelb is as tiny in stature and as spunky as Becca, with greying auburn hair that's twisted up into a messy bun by red chopsticks. While they embraced, Eden gurgling and dimpled between them, her rolypoly legs squirming and kicking happily, Sam could swear Gideon was Becca's doppelganger.

She hugs him warm and tight, signing-_Nice to meet you Sam_, to his delighted grin.

"Don't be a stranger, I make a mean spaghetti and meatballs and tiramisu. Mama swears I'm a secret Italian!" It's all boisterous mouth movements, enthusiastic hand gestures and eyes that twinkle with mischief and he loves her dearly already. 

The crinkle in her smiling brown eyes that are really more hazel, flashes a memory that he blinks away quick.

"Oh, I won't be. Promised Eden I'll be over every night if I can...yesh I did didn't I" He babbles into Eden's squishy tummy.

They leave for the dorms soon after, but not before his parents accept Gideon's invitation for dinner that night.

Sam had been lucky enough to score one of the rare suite dorm rooms, perks of being accepted into the honors college program. It consisted of two separate rooms for his suite roommate and himself with a common living room area they could set up with a TV, a tiny kitchenette equipped with a double stove top and a nook for a microwave and an en suite bathroom they were to share. The maneuvering through the cluttered and crowded halls of anxious and excited freshman was a slow process, but they managed finally, huffing and puffing as they rolling onto his floor from the elevator, arriving at his front entrance, a baby-blue painted metal door with an automated key card doorknob. Tacked under the peephole was a piece of navy cardstock paper with a doodle of his alma mater mascot, a WELCOME YE FRESHMAN written in blocked letters along with his name and his roommate's:

**GARETH VISSER**

"That name looks familiar, hon." His mom signs, tapping his shoulder and knocking him out of his stupored stance. 

"Yeah...um..it's Grizz." The words latch thick onto his tongue, he can feel it heavy and his slurring more pronounced, but he doesn't trust his hands not to shake, to sign. A sourness soon fills his mouth.

He wants to run.

He is eighteen years old, a fully fledged adult in many cultures including his, about to start freshman year at a prestigious college, a smart and witty intellect, and he's curled into himself in the backseat of his black hatchback, like he'd used to when he was eight, under tables or anything that could hide his small frame whenever Campbell decided they'd play hide and seek. Campbell was always the seeker and the one who hid would get a punch to the gut. The longer he hid the longer he could prolong from receiving the sharp pain Campbell was careful to inflict, hands in tight fists as he reached far, far back and swung. 

And just like those terrifying moments, waiting and anticipating, he once again desperately wanted to vanish into smoke.

He'd left his parents near the student lounge, feigning an excuse of forgetting something in his car. The thought that Grizz was standing behind his entrance door made the bile rush up, potent. Upchucking was a definite and he needed a moment.

Or perhaps several moments. Years and years, kind of moments.

It was too soon, the thrum of panic scaling up the skin of his back leaving a trail of cold sweat. 

Closing his eyes, trying to center himself, he pictures Eden's cheruby cheeks against the crook of his neck, remembers the calming and warming feel of it and he breathes.

He takes out his phone and sends Becca a text.

**My original roommate bailed, I don't know why.**

**So you have the suite to yourself? Sweet! Heh Heh:D**

**No they've found another.**

**Damn..spoke to soon. You've met him yet?**

**No..but I know who it is. Name is on the sheet by our front door. **

A beat passes then several, his fingers hovering over the keys. Maybe if he doesn't type it out it won't be true. This is all some fucked, intensely real day-dream and he'll wake up in a minute to Becca driving in the front, head bobbing to some top 40 song he can't hear and Eden, mouth formed into a coo as she sleeps in her buckled bassinet. 

**Ok..and??** The vibration in his hand of a sent text startles him into answering back.

**It's Grizz.**

**THE FUCK???? **

**Y** **eah...Fuck.**

**Are you ok?? **

**God Sam I don't even know what to say. **

**But your fine! Ok? **

**It's been a year and your fine. **

**How is this even possible? He goes to fucking Notre Dame!! **

**SAM??? FUCK!**

The onslaught of texts that rush in almost overwhelms, the sentiment of it that drips Becca's concerned desperation hits harder and hurts more than Campbell's punches and he has a sudden urge to bawl, loud and ugly. 

**God! I'm heading over now...Fucking bastard will get SHIT if he tries anything..If he even looks at you funny!**

**Becca it's fine!** He finally gets out a reply. He's not but he knows how to pretend. Fucking trained and conditioned like a stone soldier to do so for years. He'd survived the shit-show of sophomore year. He can do it again. He will not bring her back into this mess. She's dealt with enough concerning the fuckery that is Grizz and him.

**Just a lot to take. Texted you because I needed to let it out. Give Eden a kiss for me. I'll text you back later. Promise.**

Putting his phone in his back pocket he ignores the quick succession of answering vibrations, opens his car door and climbs out.

It's relief so intense finding the room empty upon entering, it's a force that rips right through him, almost taking with it his ribs and spine and his parents would turn from their perch by the kitchen window a they watched the sun set to find him a boneless heap of incoherent mumblings on the carpeted dorm room floor.

He hastens the placement of boxes and suitcases in his chosen bedroom with a speed that has his dad chuckling and little perturbed.

_Can't wait to get rid of us? Huh, champ?- _He kneads a calming pressure into the blade of Sam's shoulder.

_No!-_ His raised forefinger and middle touch his thumb briefly shaping an O with such a snap he hopes the urgency of his signing punctuates and conveys how he does not want them gone. "I don't want you to drive too late home is all. And you have dinner still with Gideon and Becca."

But it's half truths and mostly lies. 

If he'd monetized his skill for bending the truth he'd be--

_Your not coming with?_ \- There is an open worry now on his mother's face, as she reaches over with the back of her hand against his forehead. _You look pale, hon._

_Yeah, I'm not feeling so good. I'll pass tonight. Sleep in early? But you both go on and have fun at Becca's._

Their hesitant and his mother almost wins as she insists on staying the night, but he reassures them he'll feel better after a goodnight's sleep, sending a pleading look towards his father who relents but not without a firm "You text us and we'll come right back, no hesitation, understood?" The pointed look tells Sam he knows more than this charade hopes to mask but his father goes no further and takes his mother's hand, leading her towards the door.

"Yes sir."

He locks his ensuite bedroom, thinks to put a chair against the knob just in case but rolls his eyes, exhaling a puffed breath at his insanity and puts the chair back by his desk.

Times like this he wishes he could hear. 

Could hear the click and whir of machinery as the keycard activated the automated knob and let him know Grizz had finally arrived.

Could hear the shuffling of feet as Grizz explored the room to find his roommate already dead alseep, having picked the bedroom closest to the bath, which he might have wanted, and in another lifetime where they were friends if not lovers he would have waited and given Grizz top pick of rooms.

Or maybe Grizz would never enter, seeing from the sign alone Sam was to be his roommate if he had not already known via email or some other avenue before moving in. Maybe at the last minute he'd also changed his mind like Sam's other potential roommate.

Because things were still too fresh.

Because he still hated Sam.

He doesn't remember falling asleep, but he wakes to the warmth on his cheek that's starting to scald from the filtering sunlight through the cracks of the peeling vinyl blinds hanging on the window by his bed. Remembers with clarity a dream of Grizz bolting through his locked door, knocking it down by a swift kick of his muscled leg, demanding him why the hell he was there. Sam can hear in his dream and Grizz's voice eerily sounds like the deepened tone of Campbell's at 5.

The room is a state, his boxes still unpacked, and he smells terribly pungent having foregone washing up, still clad in yesterday's black Henley and jeans. He's also starving. The slosh of acid and probably his stomach trying to consume itself forces him up from bed.

Enough is enough. He can't hide in his room forever.

He sends a quick apologetic reply to Becca's purge of texts, not bothering to read through them all. He knows the gist, her worry for him radiates from her aunt's brownstone and through the phone. 

**I'll come over later for dinner. Haven't seen him yet. Maybe he's never coming. Fingers crossed!**

Steeling himself**, **a hand balled into a clench by his thigh he opens he door.

Grizz is curled on his side on the couch in the common room in grey joggers and a cream hoodie. An arm pillows his head, hair considerably longer now, chocolate bangs tucked behind his ear with the rest tied up into a haphazard topknot that makes Sam's throat ache and choke. 

He looks just as Sam remembers.

Hearbreakingly beautiful.

There is an innocence in his furrowed brow as he dreams, his head twitching slight. He's younger somehow in his sleep. Jaw no longer clenched, the scowl and the gritting of teeth softened into lips that beckon for a kiss. 

Sam has reached the couch through a hypnotic fog orchestrated by his subconscious that move his feet forward against his mind's better judgement.

Wake up! Retreat!

It scolds.

But he doesn't fight the urge to reach out as he takes an errant lock from Grizz's brow. It's as soft as he remembers, running it between his forefinger and thumb, his breathing gone slow and heavy, until--

A grip on his wrist jolts him awake. It's tight hand that digs into his pulse and another finds its place where his thigh meets his hip bone, that lights electric fire into his skin as he's lifted and flipped onto his back, the cushioned couch catching his fall. Muscled thighs that strain through its cotton confines straddle and keep his hips in place, his wrists held back near his head, bent at the elbows.

Hooded wild eyes stare into his, the hazel catching the light. There gaze follow his tongue as he'd wet his bottom lip, panting from the abrupt and rough movements that's knocked air from his lungs.

"Sam" Grizz mouths as he leans in.

\-------------------------------------------------------


	4. If You Were Given One More Chance, Part I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The fuckery ensues....
> 
> And not so fucked up things...
> 
> Hope for star crossed lovers?....

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Italics will indicate signing.  
More angst, obviously...a reunion...sexual tension. As thick as Grizz's badonk kadonk Good stuff:)
> 
> Songs accompaniment to intensify le experience: SYML - The Bird, Abel Korzeniowski - Table for Two
> 
> I have no idea of Columbia's campus grounds layout so just going to make shit up because I can't be bothered :D
> 
> Please bestow some critical criticism..hungry for feedback to improve writing, the story development or what have you.

_Covered in dust_

_The wings of my porcelain dove_

_They don't trouble the waters my love_

_Frozen in time_

_Fragile to touch_

_She melts like the words on my tongue_

_The Goddess of heavenly love_

_Fades out the sight_

_All your stars are in view_

_I get lost lovin' you_

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Wake up.

Please wake up.

It's a wasted plea. The world does not fade to black.

Grizz continues to lean in. His calloused hands and fingers are heavy, their grip tight on Sam's wrists that have no fight. He slides his right thigh, strong with promised power, between Sam's legs, pushing them open, raised and bent at the knee. It moves dangerously close to the part that scoffs at rationality and decency, forgets history that has brought them to here and now, and aches to rut dirty and loud, wild and long. Aches to follow the off kilter tug of gravity.

Instead of down, it pulls up.

Sam lays under Grizz, meeting breathe by hot breathe, Grizz's own. Hazel eyes, lidded, glazed dark, finds his and travel back, hungry, to his bottom lip now between teeth as Sam counts the drumming beat of his pulse; grounds himself from falling.

Grizz’s tongue darts out to lick lips so red he wants a bite.

Oh God, just a taste. Just a little closer and---

But he turns his neck, pressing his cheek into the cushioned couch. Pushes himself back and away, into its metal springed skeleton, that's cutting through the weathered leather and matting into his sweat. Away from the hand that's let go of one of his wrists to run a burning trail of fingers down his side until it reaches the hem of his shirt, slipping underneath, pulling the waist of his jeans that's ridden low, to exposed the fevered skin of the jut of his hip that Grizz grips and pulls up into him.

Sam spots the empty whiskey bottle, a glass tumbler precariously rolled on its side near the edge of the coffee table. Any minute it would fall and break.

Mr. Sandman, take me away.

He now smells the reek, rancid and sour. Feels the ghosting of wet lips nearing his jugular. And if he turns to it, with open lips he'd be drunk too.

So he rips his wrists from Grizz's hold, with a strength of a cornered animal, or the kind that can lift a whole truck off of a trapped child. He imagines Eden's face on the child and it’s what finally pushes Grizz off of him. The force almost lands the taller and much bigger man onto the floor beneath, but he catches himself, eyes clearing as he sits back on his haunches near the arm of the couch. He looks at Sam with shattered realization, splintered and bouncing between shock and...

Revulsion.

Grizz opens his mouth as if to——

But Sam doesn't wait. He bolts with a speed that almost knocks his body onto the glassed surface of the coffee table, grabs his small pack of necessities; his student id, money, key card and exits into the hall with a slam of the front door. 

He's run across the campus grounds, avoids colliding into early stragglers from some late night debauchery, and collapses onto a stone bench inside the shrubbed alcove near the back entrance to student commons. The amount of running he's been doing as of late makes joining the track team or some running club equivalent like the best progression of steps to take. 

Of course...

Of course, he'd be repulsed! 

But the feel of him, the way his hard chest had moved in sync with Sam's faltering lungs; the way his dark bangs, slightly damp, had framed and curtained his flushed face; the way he'd turned Sam's blood into gasoline...had been intoxicating. 

Which shames and devastates because it's too soon and even if Grizz had instigated he'd been drunk and it's been a fucking year and then all this and hours before he'd been terrified of the pending reunion, wanting nothing of it, had decided months and months ago it was best to forget and no longer want and this is regression and----

He still wants nothing to do with me.

Sam hangs his head, nails digging indentations through the fabric of his jeans, exhaling sharp and quick as he wills himself not to cry. 

The running and hiding and crying and--

FUCK! He's tired of it all.

GOD! What am I supposed to feel?!?

**Can I come over now?**

Becca's answered text is immediate, and he lets the guilt burn the back of his throat.

**Yes! Of course! Are you OK???**

**I'll tell you when I get there.**

Deciding to take the longer route to Gideon's, following the back ways of rusted red and tan bricked buildings that outlined the perimeter of campus, allows time for empty and silent thoughts to permeate. Thoughts free of concrete plots that hurt or confuse or anger but focus on how the air was still muggy but had a faint hint of a fall bite. Autumn was his favorite season and that was something to look forward to.

Yes...things to look forward to, like Eden's happy gummy smile when he brought her close for a snuggle each time he greets after time away and her sweet scent of milk and lavender baby shampoo. 

It calms and hushes the loudness of his mind, shuts its demons' eyes and tucks them away.

Becca's face, however, is not calm when she opens the door and drags him inside; an undecided look of wanting to reprimand with a slap to the arm or pulling Sam into a smothering hug. The hug wins and he folds into the embrace. If only he could stay like that forever.

_I'm dropping out, be a trophy wife? We'll be progressive and you can bring home the bacon.- _The answer is pursed lips and a squinted rolling of eyes. 

_Aunt Giddie's gone for a few days on a work retreat, Eden's napping, and I'm going to make you some black tea and rum. Don't knock it till you've tried it..and you're gonna talk--_she pushes him into the nearest wooden stool by the kitchen counter as she gets to making said concoction that's gotten his already turning and famished stomach even more sick.

"Can I have some toast at least...my gut's all squeamish." He calls out to her back as she waits on the kettle to boil. 

"You'r fault for missing Aunt Giddie's spaghetti last night," but she plates him a blueberry muffin which he scarves down in one go.

He's soon feeling slightly better, remembering a vague memory of forgetting his lunch and being given half of Grizz's club sandwich and 4 chocolate chip muffins from a sleepy eyed grin.

"Clark, why do you have so much chocolate chip muffins lately? Mrs. Beecher starting a muffin business or something?"

"It's only ten, Grizz, and Mama knows how much Sam loves them..made a bigger batch last night." 

He blinks it away, and all but gulps down the offered drink. It scalds his tongue but Becca is right because it's delicious, warming him through, the bitter complemented by lemon and a chase of honey.

His antics raise Becca's brows, a remark on the tip of of her tongue, hands at the ready but she sits back instead and waits. Concern is perched heavy on her shoulder but she waits.

Tracing a finger around the rim of the pink ceramic mug that has a purple winking turtle on the face, his mind sifts through disjointed words and attempts to organize the jumble in his head. Word vomit will have to suffice.

_Grizz didn't move in last night. But maybe he did. I locked myself in my room --don't give me that look-- so I don't know. Woke up and figured I'd finally head out since I was hungry and saw him sleeping on the couch. One thing led to another and he's flipped me over on my back..found out he was drunk so I bolted out of there. And here I am. The end. _

The processing of what's been signed is almost tangible as Becca digests the hurried onslaught of gestures, eyes widening progressively bigger and bigger until-- 

_"_W_HAT?!?__" _Signing is forgotten and if he had his hearing he's sure it would be ringing by how shrill Becca must have yelled. He's surprised Eden hadn't woken. Knows this by how Becca stays, back rigid, mouth grimaced opened bringing out teeth, and eyes pointed, prodding for clarification.

_"_You're going to have to fill in the blanks, bud, because what the hell do you mean he flipped you on your goddamn back!?...On the couch?? And he was fucking drunk? What the hell did he do, Sam?!"

"No!! God, no!! Nothing like that!"

Grizz would never. The thought had not even crossed his mind, despite the sudden roughness of Grizz's actions. Because in the moment, his primal self wanted it, wanted to be taken rough, fast and hard.

"I'd opened the door to my room and I saw him laying there all peaceful and...he was beautiful and I missed him Becca! I fucking missed him!...And then I'm touching his hair? Like who does that?! And when I was under him and he was leaning in...touching me--I wanted him to! Wanted him so bad. But when I saw he was drunk and I pushed him away he looked--I...I don't know..like when he realized it was me he looked..disgusted? I mean--what am I supposed to feel??"

He can't stop the tears and he can't catch his breath because he's still drowning from remembering and it all pulls the expected turn of quick softness from Becca's aggression. 

"I don't know, Love."

The sigh that he catches from the rise and fall of her chest tells him she wants to take all this upon herself and fix it for him.

"But I think it's time for you to talk to him. Maybe tell him the truth?" A tear that travels to his chin is wiped away as Becca lifts his face, cradling his jaw in her hands. "I'll come with, if you want."

"Talk to him." He repeats, nodding and contemplating but really wishing it away. Finds a spot on the wall by the cupboards behind Becca's. He'll avoid the encouragement he's sure is bright in her eyes. Hiding and becoming a recluse seemed so much more tempting than confrontations and being brave.

"Ok...but I'm staying the night."

Putting off the inevitable for a couple more hours won't make a difference, he figures.

He forgets orientation week is to start the next morning, and his day would be riddled with mandatory activities, like meeting his academic adviser and the ASL interpreter assigned to him for the semester. The relief that he'll have to postpone his talk with Grizz until perhaps the next night eases the knots in his gut.

_I think you should also talk to someone...like a professional someone. Maybe it's also time for that?- _She signs this with a carefulness and he knows she thinks she must tread lightly this subject they'd never broached.-_ I know a someone that could help._

_Maybe._

One thing at a time he thinks, watching, from his side of their shared bed, Eden sleep in her crib with a curled fist around her favorite blankie. Envies Eden's carefree serenity as Becca turns off the bedside lamp.

The idea of a stranger listening as he digs into to the most intimate and darkest parts of his psyche to be laid bare and rifled through and appraised like antique trinkets at some traveling trades fair made his skin bleed acid, despite how learned their discipline were to be and how many accolades hung on their clinic wall. And despite how he was to study for the same field to maybe one day help someone similar to himself.

Oh the ironic contradictions of being human; what a fucking mess he is.

He dreams of running across a wooded path as he chases a faceless man with long black hair that he's desperate to kiss. Or is he really running from him?

His sleep had been fitful, his back hurt crooked, and the waffles he'd indulged Becca in eating sits like rocks in his stomach that churns violent. But he's fortified with hugs and kisses from his girls and a tug on his shirt collar because Eden wants more cuddles. 

_I'm a text away._\- Becca reminds him and he gives her a lasting kiss on the cheek, grateful. He pushes away the ugly thoughts of what he'd do without her. It's too early in the morning for this.

The meeting with his adviser goes smooth and quick; his class schedule organized and catered to his specificity. Mrs. Tish is a blushed cheek, portly, middle aged woman, who shares the redness of his hair, that's styled into a pixie cut. She is also of open mouthed chuckles after every few words, and she can sign.

_My father is deaf.- _She explains, her hands and fingers moving with a dexterity and fluency of someone with a personalized familiarity of ASL. He leaves her office feeling slightly lighter from their happy rapport and a grin that crinkles the corners of his eyes when he gives a firm promise to never hesitate for a visit if he ever had questions or just for a moment to chat. 

_You'll make me miss my father less and stop my signing from getting rusty._ \- Her father lived all away across the country in a small fishing town on the coast. Sam also reminded her of him because he had the same dimples and dry humor.

Good things, he thinks. Good things and more to come and he'll focus on this instead of the nagging and poking itch at the scruff of his neck that he'll ignore even when his paranoia grows alert once he's out the door and headed towards the student lounge in the library where he's to meet his interpreter. Ignores the subdued panic as he scans the milling and scattered crowd across the campus lawn. Scanning to see and avoid a certain dark haired, hazel eyed man. 

Because Grizz is a man now.

Another birthday had passed, a moment of time on the calendar that once long ago he'd given an oath to celebrate the hell out of the next coming birthdays together because "You've missed too many of mine already, Sam. You owe me!"

He's turned 20 now and how time flies, which it certainly does because he's arrived at the entrance of the library without remembering the steps he took or route he followed but he's there and he hopes with a sudden fierce prayer that whoever his interpreter was to be they'll be as kind as Mrs. Tish.

Taking the winding glass lined staircase up to the second floor he stops at the information desk, manned by a student worker with a messy high strawberry blond ponytail, braces, enthusiastic grin and a name tag pinned by her collar on her Columbia University hoodie, that read "Welcome! I'm Allie!".

"Hi, Allie, I'm Sam Eliot. I was told to give you my name so I can find out about my ASL interpreter? Where to meet him or her?" He signs along with his inquiry and the distinct muffled and distorted tone and enunciation of his speech draws a fleeting surprised tick to her eye. But her grin stays if only grows bigger and he thinks all the people in this school must have some "You must be a sweet kind soul to work here" doctrine to sign upon employment.

"Oh, right! I was expecting you! And it's a he actually. H_e's _waiting for you by the back of the student lounge. Last row of cubicles? I think number 4. You won't miss him." She taps him into her computerized pad with her stylus and sends him on his way with another winning smile.

He's puzzled as to why he's yet to be given a name. Thinks to insist because he doesn't want to be bothered to return and ask if said person somehow isn't at the location Allie had indicated, but he drops it as he tugs and readjust the strap from his pack on his shoulder, while he navigates around book shelves and tables cluttered with papers and books and tired students until he's reached the line of cubicles by the back wall. It's almost void of light expect for a scant filtering of sun through one rectangular window of iron wrought frame and there are a total of five with white laminated black lettered signs on the wall above them indicating their assigned numbers. He counts down to four to his left and spots a hunched figure with tan cargo shorts and a forest green hoodie that's covering his head. He looks to be asleep and Sam almost snorts at the image but shuffles over to tap him on his shoulder as he greets him with a "Hey, I'm Sam! You're my interpreter?" 

He _is_ asleep and it's a minute before he's stretching slight, back arching with a gradual up and down shrugging of broad shoulders and a hand that lifts up and cracks its knuckles against the cubicle wall and then reaches to pull back his hood, revealing a mussed mop of long, dark, chocolate waves that's held back into a low tail by a familiar black elastic band. He's seemed to have truly woken because his spine grows stiff as he straightens up and sucks in a sharp breath, slowly turning to face Sam.

"Hi." 

It's Grizz.

Mother Fuck.


	5. If You Were Given One More Chance part II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Let's go back gentle readers. Back in time and delve into Grizz's POV of events that have transpired so far.
> 
> Welcome to the mess that is Grizz's mind.
> 
> The events of the story also has evolved in a way that initial prompt will be slightly altered. Because of this chapter Grizz had never planned on coming out even into college.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We'll find out how Grizz ends up at Columbia as Sam's roommate and ASL interpreter.
> 
> This is an au so certain characters, like Gwen I've taken the liberty of tweaking a bit..but she's still true to character..I hope.  

> 
> Also, Italics are thoughts...italics with a (-) after indicate signing...hope that makes sense lol.
> 
> And going to bring in some hard core suspension of disbelief because things will get lowkey wild in terms of how Grizz transfers from Notre Dame to Columbia but just bear with me? :D Much thanks!
> 
> Song selection : SYML - Fear of the Water  
Mumford & Sons - Delta (but listen to it when Grizz starts at Notre Dame)

Some ancient call, that I've answered before

It lives in my walls, and it's under the floor

If this was meant for me, why does it hurt so much?

And if you're not made for me, why did we fall in love?

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Two Years Ago.... 

Maybe if Grizz had argued and bombarded Sam with concrete details, he'd have no choice but to yield.

_When I say I've had feelings for you for a while now, I mean I've wanted you in my life since I saw you walk down the hall with that cast on your arm full of Dr. Suess quotes and no room for mine. When I moved into town at ten in the middle of the school year and saw this small thing of a boy with a shocking mess of red curly hair and the bluest eyes I'd ever seen._

_When I say I've had feelings for you for a while now, I mean I've watched you with quiet intrigue for years after, wondering why the hell you made my heart skip faster and louder than any pretty girl could. _

_Wondering why I thought the way your hands and fingers moved were the most beautiful form of dance I've ever seen. _

_Wondering why I'd dream about you more often times than not. _

_Why I saw you in the ocean of my past home, in the first fall of turning leaves, and when I spun tales in my head, why I incorporated you into every scenario of the future. _

_Wondering what it'd be like to hold you in my arms._

Watching Sam walk away that night was--

He felt nothing at first. His aunt, a psychiatrist specializing in trauma victims, would call it shock, his body's sense of self preservation.

On the surface he'd shown the appropriate signs of distress. Saw it mirrored in Sam's eyes while he continued to spout lies, despite, from a mouth Grizz wanted to rip from his face because it no longer belonged there. If it said things that tore and spit poison, it no longer belonged there.

Maybe if he'd grabbed and kissed him, Sam would remember.

Maybe if he'd woken up from standing there like a fucking goon, legs and feet cemented stiff into the ground because his brain had yet to connect with his heart, and ran after him.

Gotten on his knees and begged. 

_When sorrow comes, they come not in single spies but in battalions_, Claudius had once said. 

It's Hamlet, act IV, scene V; the quote comes at him with photographic clarity, like they all do, and finally the numbness gives way to a pain that doubles him over. Everything within him feels battered and if he could he'd cry blood.

It only felt like seconds ago Sam was in his arms and forever with him was a possible, real thing.

And now this.

The game that comes soon after goes by in a blur of colliding bodies and a sudden urge to destroy anything and anyone that came his way. It's a scary feeling but he let's it consume him. Scores the winning touchdown because of it. 

For years he'd accepted the endearment of Grizz, given because of his stature and largeness and ability on the field akin to that of a grizzly.

He hated it. He hated to see others feel intimated or scared by him. Was intentional in concealing his broad shoulders under baggy shirts and over-sized hooded sweaters. Made himself considerably smaller with hunched back. He had a quick temper yes, his mom could attest with amusement and an immediate regaling of some embarrassing story of a toddler Grizz, but it was more tears rather than fists. 

"He's just a sensitive boy, passionate about things," his mother smiles, proud.

Because he's quicker to injure and attack with words than drawing blood. Though he would if need be, manifest into something ugly and terrifying. 

If someone ever dare hurt Sam, he would.

With Sam, for the first time he'd thanked genetics and past ancestry for his height and bigness. He loved how he could, if he had the guts to cross that bridge, gather Sam in his arms like he weighed nothing. Loved towering over the smaller boy. Loved how Sam would look up, head tilted in the way that made him mental, eyes a brilliant blue during moments where things got blurred, and if he leaned down he could finally have a taste of what he'd been craving for so long.

But things are different now, Sam is no longer his. Or was he ever?

Yet still, a layer of himself has peeled and given way into a violent, angry, bear; claws unsheathed.

He shrugs away the look in Luke's eyes while they change in the locker room after.

"Bro, you good?"

He's fucking fine.

The next morning brings the what ifs searing and gnawing. He should have fought harder, wanting to pound regret into the ground. Like how he wanted to pound Campbell into a pulp where bone and tissue fused into an indecipherable mess. 

Because he knows it's Campbell. 

Sam had told him enough if not all about Campbell's psychosis. Knew past the carefully crafted facade of run of the mill problem-drug dealer-child that everyone else accepted. 

Saw once a fresh bruise forming on Sam's pale wrist after Campbell's rough ministrations. But that was before they were friends and he'd had to stay away.

The way Sam had responded the night of their first kiss. The way his lips moved against and with him. The way he'd looked back and said so many unsaid things that need not words. 

Unsaid things they've both skirted around for months now.

Told him it was all Campbell.

Grizz can't remember the succession of steps from home to school, but he's now in front of Campbell's smug face and everything turns red. 

"Tell me it's because of you!" The first punch, splits Campbell's lips, blood trickling down from his grin that grows only bigger.

"What the hell you talking about, Visser?" But his eyes say different, and Grizz wants to gouge them out and fill the holes with dynamite. 

The screeching yell that shoots chilled needles down his spine, stops him from bashing Campbell's head into the pavement. His own left eye swollen shut, a wetness that stings, dribble down his chin as he turns to it, seeing Sam standing at the edge of the growing crowd, agitated, mouth twisted, breath heaving.

Grizz goes to him, because he always will, grabbing Sam by the waist and trying to pull a recantation of everything. 

And when Sam stands his ground with his lie and Campbell goads with the slurred bait, he bites and the slap stuns. 

"Don't fucking touch my brother!" 

_So you choose him over me. _

_Betrayal can only happen if you love._ He hates his mind. It's a John le Carre quote, and its definitely not the time for such things.

He's suspended for two weeks.

It's hell. 

The isolation allows his thoughts to wander and wonder too much. He has screaming matches with it as he goes through every iteration of grief and loss, because it's turned into a cycling loop, refusing to stop. 

He ignores the Guard's calls and text. His brothers are worried but he's drowning and can't reach the surface.

After the hundredth loop he chooses anger. He will hold on to it. Dwell and stay in it, because its the least helpless feeling he's had. 

Its safe.

But his subconscious is a stubborn bastard. He wakes up almost every morning mid wail as he's pulled, grasping and reaching for a Sam that walks away. Always towards a grinning Campbell. The slap replays in every dream and its turned into a festering wound.

When he returns to school he sees Sam laughing with Becca, signing with one hand, the other twisting and turning the combination to open his locker. It's a Sam laugh that tells him he's content and a quip is soon to follow. 

He's sure of it; he's cataloged them all and memorized them by heart.

_So that's how it's going to be. _

The story in the hallways talk of Sam forcing a kiss from Grizz the night before the last game of the season, taking advantage of their friendship. 

Sweet Grizzy vs. The Desperate Sex Crazed Homo

The versions of what happened get considerably wilder and worse as it passes from mouth to ear.

"He'd stuck his hand down Grizz's pants, fucking pervert!" 

"Pushed him down and was going to suck him off, good thing Grizz can take care of himself. Can you imagine??"

"He has naked pics of him, saw him creeping one day by the locker room!"

It's all instigated by Campbell, explaining away the fight they'd had.

"I'd caught Sam ramming his tongue down Grizz's throat. Grizz thought I'd read the whole thing wrong, scared I'd out him as a fag or something. Totally understandable, but I wouldn't do that to Visser. The scene was clear as day. Sam was forcing himself on Grizz."

The mob mentality are idiotic mindless sheep and they would eat it up with no question, but the stories would have stayed as tall tales because the only clout Campbell had was over the people he dealt to. 

The stories become word when Grizz stays silent and does not deny, because people respect Grizz and they know he never lies.

"Don't worry Grizzy, we have your back. Clark's taken care of things." The vagueness of Jason's declaration leaves him uneasy and he doesn't have the stomach to chase after details. But there's a part that is satisfied. It whispers "He deserves it."

_I've only ever cared for you and yet you question that and let whatever monstrosity conjured by Campbell to get in our way? _

_So be it._

Sam and Becca don't eat in the cafeteria anymore, their spots at the table now occupied by a backpack or a stretching leg.

He hears faggot and fag thrown generously at Sam. Sam is no longer his name.

Luke is quiet through it all, never participates but is as passive as he is. Grizz will play deaf and blind when it comes to the younger Eliot brother. 

But when he sees Sam "accidentally" elbowed into the whitewashed brick walls of the hallway, he fights every inch of reflex that's conditioned to protect Sam. Turns away from the excruciating need to run to him, gather him in his arms and kiss away the hurt. If Clark got pummeled into the wall in the process, it is just a mere casualty.

_You've hurt what's mine, there will be consequences. _

The face that stares back through the sink mirror as he tries to catch his breath in the bathroom he's retreated into, is alien. His complexion has gone pale and ashen, shadowed half moons are now a permanent mainstay under his eyes that have dulled, and his mouth only ever scowls. 

He will count the days until he's far away from here. Far away from the boy with blue eyes who lies and won't let Grizz love him.

Prom looms closer, with graduation two days right after. He's reminded of a time where he'd planned on asking Sam to be his date. Planned on screwing everything to the wind, laying it all down for the younger boy.

_When I say I've had feelings for you for a while now, I mean I love you and I will no longer fight or bury it deep because I choose you over ingrained propriety, my father's bigotry and my mothers want for what's best for me._

His father is a good man. He's just and fair. Taught him, with a patience that made him "love his Daddy so much", to play football and how to throw a tight spiral. He loved his son back, dearly, and showed quiet affection through firm pats on the back after a winning game or a quick nod of approval after an aced test, high marked report card or when he'd gotten accepted into his father's alma mater through a full ride football scholarship.

But he also loved a god that would send Grizz to the pits of hell if he ever pursued a forever with Sam Eliot.

So for years Grizz played straight. Not for reasons because he'd be ostracized in school. The people that only mattered were his brothers on and off the field and he knew they'd accept him if he ever came out. Jason after all had a bisexual older cousin, happily living with his partner in New York, who Jason idolized and planned on moving in with after graduation, while he attended Columbia with a football scholarship.

He'd kept his sexual identity a secret because he did not want to burden them in lying to his parents because they too were especially close with the Vissers. Called them "mom" and "dad".

And he played straight because he loved his father and mother too much to lose them, even if their love back was conditional, because he knew with certainty he would.

But then Sam decides to sits behind him in English Lit which he doesn't even need to take in order to graduate, and really everything happens for a reason because for the first time he stops holding his breath, pursues their friendship with fervor that leaves him clamoring for more because being with Sam, truly being with him, even just as friends, is intoxicating.

His smile intoxicates; crinkles the corners of his eyes adorably so, his tongue caught between his teeth in that teasing way that made Grizz blood turn hot. His words intoxicates, all witty and hilarious, leaves Grizz's cheeks and belly aching from grinning and laughing too much. His words intoxicates because he says things like "I wish I could hear your voice" which strums sharp at Grizz's heartstrings and he's nothing but overwhelmed. His touch intoxicates, even if its intent is innocent, because they linger too long and Grizz skin is always on fire.

He can't get enough.

And he learns sign, thought not as much as he'd like since Sam insists he wants to better his speech and lip-reading for college, because he wants to be as connected as he can be with Sam, if not all the ways he truly wants.

When they finally kiss and Sam is looking at him in such a way, he realizes what love is without conditions, and he wants that over a father and mother who could only love him with terms and agreements.

He'd chosen Sam.

But then gets gutted and thrown aside like trash, and he can't help but feel like he's being punished by his father's god.

A week before prom he pulls Carla aside and asks her to go with him. Carla is from physics, a leggy brunette with fuckable lips, per Jason's assessment. She's also accepted to Harvard Pre-Med and is salutatorian for their graduating class, who he'd caught tonguing a senior cheerleader during their sophomore year. It's not romantic or laden with grand gestures and she startled certainly, squinting back reluctant, arms crossed.

"You know I always thought you were gay. Thought you held a flame for Sam Eliot."

"I'm not and I don't. You want to go to prom or not?"

The smirk says it all. She'd make a good prosecutor if her doctoral pursuits don't pan out. 

"Ok, Visser. I'll play along." Kissing him on his cheek as she accepts.

She plays her part well, clinging to him all love crazed as they walk the halls, charming The Guard as they genuinely take to her. 

When Clark offers her some chocolate chip muffins he has to look away. 

Prom is a night of robotic machinations and going through the motions. He coifs his hair just right, spritz on something that makes his skin smell good, and decides on a lime green button up with some gaudy colored bow tie he'd picked up last minute, roughly pushing into the back of his closet a garment bag held tux he'd rented months before with a silver tie that would bring out the blue in Sam's eyes. It hits the floor and knocks over the polaroid camera sitting by the wall. He'd purchased it to commemorate his moments with Sam. Being with him wasn't enough. He needed to immortalize his time with him, printed memories they both could look back and reminisce. And he loved the romance of a Polaroid picture. Loved how Sam's eyes lit up with anticipation as he'd shake the Polaroid, as the print slowly revealed itself. 

He shuts his closet door with a loud, firm click.

Carla looks appropriately stunning in her princess-cut strapless dress, the caramel of her skin beautiful against the silver. The pictures his mother snaps come out perfect.

His father approves, his mother gushing and congratulating Carla on her Harvard acceptance. He knows she's already picturing little mini Carla's and Grizz's calling her "Grama".

There it is. The reason why he'd never invited Sam over to study. Why they spent time together everywhere else but home. 

He's completely wasted even after the first dance ends, having guzzled down a flask and a half from Jason and Clark's secret stash, of something that tastes like diesel fuel. He's finished off two joints before arriving and the haze he's currently in feels comforting and numb.

The bass of some dirty grinding song turns up and he's reminded of sweat on freckled skin he wants to lick and devour. 

He grows hard with a groan and surely Carla can feel him against her back.

"Wow there big boy, that for me?"

And he sees him across the crowded dance floor, spots him easily because he towers over everyone else. Sam's eyes are shut, hint of a smile on his lips, red hair wild like bedhead, Becca gyrating near his side as he undulates his hips to the beat; a fucking wanton minx tempting him to come over. 

"But of course." Carla following his line of sight. 

"Let's get the fuck out, I need some air."

He's led them to the spot under the bleachers, forgets for a minute its significance as he fumbles in his pocket for a lighter, a joint between thumb and forefinger that shake and consequently drops. 

"Fuck!" He's stepped on it, cutting into the rolled paper with the heel of his dress shoe, its contents buried into the wet dirt.

He's still very hard.

When she offers to take care of it, take the edge off, he blanches but doesn't decline.

"No worries Visser, your dick's not gonna make me fall in love. I've got a Sam too. Samantha, waiting for me in Boston" She giggles, eyes glassy, laced with soft empathy. 

And when she takes him in her mouth, knees sinking into the mud below with a wink and a salute, he closes his eyes to the ridiculousness of it all, closes his eyes and sees only Sam. 

He's a moaning mess, loud and obscene because it feels entirely too good and heady as he imagines Sam's mouth instead, that he almost misses the gasp from across the hideout. A gasp that has the distinct inflection of a voice he's missed. 

Sam looks wrecked, tears falling free, gaze unwavering. And Grizz looks back hard, as his hips thrusts faster and faster, a bitter part of him that still smarts angry, looks back hard wanting to maim and hurt. 

When he comes with a growl, Sam turns and runs.

\----------------------------------------------------------

Three months after prom night....

Notre Dame is everything he'd imagined. It's a fresh start, lush with turning foliage, manicured lawns and rich academia. Pomp and circumstance drip from the walls, lined and framed with the school's forefathers; it's halls echoing with ghosts of long past learned men and women. 

The football program is an intense heightened version of his high school experience, but the boys are welcoming and encouraging. The camaraderie among his teammates is rampant and he's close to calling them family, but he misses his brothers too much.

They've all but scattered across the country, Luke miles away at Berkley and Jason and Clark at Columbia. And football is just not the same anymore.

As much as he wants to immerse himself in this new world of college life and limitless possibilities, homesickness sits too heavy in his gut.

He feels suddenly very alone, even as he stands by the wall, nursing a beer in hand, in a crowded kitchen at some frat party he can't remember whose, because he'd only just blindly followed his roommate's invitation to "party it up my bro, classes don't start until next week."

A shock of red hair catches his eye as the figure rounds the corner into another room packed with more people, and for a second he's hopeful. 

But he catches his error.

_Hopeful for what? _

It's been three months, two days, 8 hours and 30 mins since prom, and although he'd cut ties with everyone except the Guard, each night stays fitful, suffocated by images of a devastated Sam, a silent cry of "Why?!" on his lips.

_You have no right! It was you who threw me aside and fucked me up, remember?!_

It's half felt, because he'd take back that night if he could.

He's tired, his body exhausted from being tightly bound by anger for so long. He's moved to acceptance and resignation.

You can't recover burnt bridges from things like that, when its ashes have long been scattered by the wind. The look on Sam's face when he'd ran told him he'd never see him again.

A week after classes start, and he's milling about near the courtyard by the library, crunching fallen leaves underfoot, wasting away time until football practice next hour. He spots a post board, tacked full of flyers and brochures, hanging on the wall; a particular announcement grabbing his attention.

It's a flyer to join the ASL club, blocked letters in bright colors offering free lessons. He doesn't hesitate in taking a copy, folding and tucking it into his back pocket.

He shuts his mind's eye. Ignores rationality that yells, "What the hell are you doing?" as he checks out the biggest most intensive ASL book the school library had in its archive. He pores over it, taking in as much as he can, refreshing what he's already learned, before the first meeting come Friday.

The ASL club, held in one of the free study rooms in the language building, is a small but boisterous bunch, a total of 40 members, including new entrants, with a good mixture of hearing and non hearing students. It's president, Maddie, is a pint size, bubbly senior with thick, course waves slicked into a tight bun, a hearing aid in her ear, and hands in constant movement along with her speech. Her mannerisms and her voice, which held a rasp, reminded him of Becca. 

Her eyes are bright as she stood in front of the cloister of chairs set up into four rows of ten, greeting everyone with a exuberant smile and enthusiastic signing.

"So happy for the turn out this year, can't wait to meet all of you. But before we get to logistics of things, semester projects and announcements lets turn to each other and introduce ourselves? Mingle and make friends, love connections, what have you! Go wild!"

He's joined the chuckling that disperses among the group as everyone turns to their nearest neighbor to say hi and exchange names. He's sat in the last row by the aisle so he's only left with the person to his right, a brunette with shoulder length curls parted to the side, mischief twinkling in her eye and a perpetual smirk.

"Gwen" offering her hand with a firm shake. "So what's your story, Mr. Man Bun?"

"It's Grizz, actually," which she'd received with a muttered _Of course_ and a good natured eye roll, "And there's no story."

"There's always a story. Why you learning ASL? Cousin? Girlfriend?"

He shakes his head to both, irritation starting to bubble at the onslaught of her insistent prying. 

"Boyfriend?" It's with a raised waggling brow and a quirk of her bowed lips.

He looks away, letting out an exasperated puff.

"Boyfriend it is, interesting."

He looks back pointed, challenging her to shut the hell up, but she grins back and he's endeared, like you would with a small annoying, mouthy, chihuahua.

"Figured as much. Your adorably handsome. That hair's doing wonders for you but there's a tell, by the corner of your mouth."

"What tell?"

"The tell that that says you like dick." The retort has him sputtering, eyes scanning the room but everyone else is too busy mingling to care.

"Your full of bull!" 

_Bullshit- _she signs the curse, forearms over top the other with one hand in the shape of bull horns, the other opening and closing with fingers spread out, her eyes bright with evil glee. "You're taking me to dinner, wanna hear all about that lover of yours. Every sordid, graphic detail."

They become fast friends, him gravitating towards Gwen's bluntness, humor and otherwise; stays for the snark and overall open spontaneity for anything. It's refreshing, and helps keep things light and not so lonely.

She's also madly in love with the "tragic romance that is you and Sam" and has made it her mission to bring them back together.

"It's too late, he fucked me up good and I fucked him back."

"Technically, not yet," she argued, forefinger up, a knowing grin on her lips.

"Shut up" he'd narrowed his eyes, mouth in a line, not amused. "Look, it's a ship that's long sailed, fell off at the world's fucking edge."

"The earth's not flat, Gareth."

"Again, shut up, _Gwenivere_."

"Then why are you learning ASL?" The question's got him chewing his bottom lip, eyes to the ground as he pushes his tongue hard against his bottom teeth.

"I don't know." 

She has the decency to drop it, bringing him in for a side hug and a peck on the cheek that's got him breathing in a shaky breath because he refuses to cry.

They decide to enroll in actual ASL classes, its an advanced exhilarated course, but it's the only one available after a month into the semester. They both take to it quickly and rather well, excelling and impressing their professor. 

Gwen's grandpa was deaf, a seafood purveyor in a small coastal town in the west. She'd lived in the east and barely saw him through the years. The guilt of never connecting with her aging grandfather and never bothering to learn ASL has her motivated in becoming fluent.

His reasoning is left unanswered but it seems they both have the common goal of second chances and reconnection.

Near the end of the semester, their professor pulls them both aside, encouraging them to progress and take the second ASL course the coming semester in continuance to their current one. 

"You're both my top students and I think this would be a perfect opportunity," he proceeds, handing them both an internship program pamphlet.

Every year a special internship program recruited exceptional hearing ASL students to become ASL interpreters for deaf or hard of hearing students attending Columbia University. It was a joint program between Notre Dame and Columbia that allowed a symbiotic trade of interns between universities.

Their both intrigued and honored for the inclusion and consideration.

"He's accepted to Columbia. Starts next fall." Gwen face is flushed red, breath ragged, as if she'd run across campus to flop her jittery self down across the table from where Grizz sat in the small coffee shop at the corner of the student commons building.

"Who did?"

"The bastard was right under our nose. Of fucking course it's Columbia." Her speech get's muffled as she takes a long gulp from his cooling mug of earl grey tea.

"Who did?!" His patience waning. He's seen her during a similar state of manic concentration and ramblings and if left unbothered she could go on for hours.

"Sam, who!" 

"O...k. Good for him." 

"Good for him...What the fuck do you mean GOOD FOR HIM?" she's all but screeched her sentiment, almost jostling his mug of tea over in her convulsion of aggravated limbs.

"He's going to Columbia. That's a fucking hard school to get into. Now let me finish my tea and annotations in peace." He makes quick work with returning to flip through his dog-eared Walden book.

The said book is snatched from his grasp and he has to will some bigger power to bring forth control because no amount of puppy dog eyes could save Gwen now.

"I slave for hours using all avenues - damn boy's got no IG or facebook, fuckin weird if you ask me- to track your goddamn lover down and I finally find _him_ and this is the thanks I get?!" 

"I never asked you to and he was never gone to begin with! He still goes to West Ham High! So you're fucking insane!" 

"You didn't have to, it's besides the point and I'm a fucking genius!" Wild eyes willing him to follow and appreciate her madness, middle and forefinger of both hands tapping at her temples in emphasis.

"And what do you expect me to do?"

"We're both going to accept this interpreting internship, go to Columbia and get yo boy back!!" She presents the plan with raised and waving arms, eyes wide, nose flared, and mouth stretched in a maniacal grin, tempting him to take the bait.

"Ok. And I'm out." He pushes himself from the table with a scraping grate of iron legs from the chair on concrete while he shuffles his book and notebook back into his small pack and hurries out the shop.

"Out my ass! Come back here!"

"Drop it!"

She doesn't.

Hours later there's a pounding at his door and a singsong whining, "Open up Gareth!! This can go all night!" 

The threat is real and he's seen what's she's capable of, so he's quick in opening his door to drag her inside before his neighbors called campus police.

"Fucking Gwen! What??"

"Hear me out. Remember when you said your first pick was Columbia? But you went for Notre Dame because its your dad's alma mater? Cue I love my papa who's a fucking bigoted idiot yada yada?"

"Shut the fuck up Gwen, those are your words not mine," but it's half-hearted because she's right and he's too tired to fight the truth any longer.

"Look it's perfect. You'll get to go to your first pick, even if its for just a year, and you'll get to be with Sam. Talk to him...bare everything out! Find out what really happened for things to have gotten so fucked up.-- My aunt's the senior academic adviser for incoming freshman. I'll see if she can pull some strings and get you to be Sam's interpreter." Her excitement is catching and the possibilities this crazy scheme of hers promises has got the part of himself he'd put long to sleep, thrum with hope.

Fuck.

"What about football?" Her grin grows bigger, teeth bared and gleaming like the Cheshire Cat.

"Do you even like football anymore, without your boys? I've seen the applications for academic scholarships, Grizz."

"And my parents?" It's close to a whisper as he toes the edge of the rug under his coffee table, but he already knows before the words are spoken.

"Remember when you told me you were thinking about telling them?" 

The tone in her voice softens, clutching his hands and lifting them to her chest.

"Maybe it's time."

He's right.

His father chooses the god he loves.

"No true son of mine would consider himself gay. I have no son."

"Give me the phone, David!!...Baby,please, think this over--"

"I love you, mom. Tell dad the same." He clicks the end call button just in time before he's collapsed into sobs he tries to muffle and keep in as they rip his insides into shreds. Gwen pulls him in to her side, gripping his head to lay into the crook of her neck, soothing the fine hairs on his nape.

"I'm sorry hon, maybe it wasn't time." 

"No," he shakes his head firm, wanting Gwen to understand it's not her doing or pressuring to tell his parents that results in such an unwanted reaction.

"Even if I waited to tell them four years from now. It'd still be the same. I'd plan to anyway. Before prom I mean. If things hadn't gone to shit with Sam, I'd planned on coming out, to hell with consequences. Because Sam was worth it...you know. I expected this."

It still hurts.

Like fucking hell.

But he's finally free.

He only hopes he would get the boy in the end.

Captain Wentworth was right.

_ A_ _man does not recover from such a devotion of the heart...He ought not; he does not._

He closes his eyes to Gwen's lulling fingers in his hair and lets himself remember Sam sitting next to him, knee and thigh touching knee and thigh, their heads leaning down and towards each other as they read through a shared copy of _Persuasion_. 


	6. Would You Bring Me Back To Life? Part I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Back to Sam ...let the games begin...?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Italics with (-) after indicates signing and italics otherwise will indicate thought.
> 
> Listening accompaniment...Natalie Taylor - Surrender, Isak Danielson - Bleed Out

_We let the waters rise_

_We drifted to survive_

_I needed you to stay_

_But I let you drift away_

_No one will win this game _

_I just want you back _

_I'm running to your side _

_Flying my white flag..._

_Whenever your ready_

_Can we surrender?_

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Present....

It's a beat that multiplies into several beats, following the erratic pounding in his head, extends into what seems like... eternity. 

If he's forgotten to blink, he can't remember. 

_Breathe._

Grizz stays sat at an awkward angle, neck turned to him but body unsure whether to get up and approach, his chair still tucked into the cubicle barely keeping his long legs in.

It reminds him of simpler times; of happy beginnings and possibilities. 

The familiar quirk to Grizz's mouth appears, the corner tilted slightly up, but his eyes are skittish and he looks to be weighing his next words. 

Sam figures its time to leave.

"Right...my mistake. Thought you were somebody else." He gives a curt nod and swivels quick towards the end of the aisle with a pivot on the balls of his feet.

He hurries through the maze of bookshelves and tables, almost tripping over an outstretched leg from a napping student; the exit towards the winding staircase in his sight. But there's a whisper that cuts through the white static, leaving him feeling fevered and crimson cheeked.

_Follow and stop me._

He scuttles past Allie, keeping his head down and away, grateful she's busy assisting someone to notice him leave. 

When he reaches the heavy glassed double doors, an interesting amalgamation of modern concepts with the antiquated tradition of the library's foundation and walls that have been kept preserved, he's quick to step out, closing the doors firmly behind him as he headed towards the path to Gideon's. 

Closed firmly to keep what he's not yet ready to face inside. 

_He wasn't supposed to see him until much later, damn it!_

A moment to recoup seemed like a good idea. Maybe another mug of rum and honey tea.

The thought eases a little the panic that's latched a line of electricity through his veins, but they crackle back up when he's abruptly stopped and turned at the corner of the tree edged bend that leads to the side walkway. Chilled hands that burn the skin at his wrist and lightly clutch the side of his waist, near the open slits of his jacket pocket, keeping him in place. Grizz is entirely too close and smells heady of strong coffee and a musky vanilla. He wants to bury himself in it, but focuses instead on Grizz's moving mouth, keeping his thoughts pure and away from carnal things.

_He's saying something, stop this nonsense shit and gather yourself._

"Fuck, your fast!" Grizz hair is wind-whipped, ponytail gone, a few strands falling across his eyes squinting against the sun. His lips, redder now and wet from the tongue that keeps darting out, appear to expel a puff of air with his impressed exclamation. He's run to catch up.

_Of course, I've had practice running away from you. _

_"_I have to go...somewhere--I'm late." He attempts to wrench himself free, hoping Grizz can't feel his desperate fight or flight energy. But Grizz doesn't let up, gripping tighter onto fabric of his jacket's hem. 

_Sam stop, please!- _Grizz pleads, the hand on his wrist lets go to sign. If he wasn't so caught up with the gradual screaming in his head he'd notice Grizz's fluent accuracy. - _You're right, I'm your interpreter. I was waiting for you._

_And I can shit out gold_, he wants to blurt, eyes squinting into slits and huffs incredulous, instead.

"Since when?" It comes out a little too sharp, a little too accusatory. 

But accusing Grizz of what? Of coming back into his life, infiltrating the fragile peace and quiet he's only just gotten a hold of, barely keeping the broken pieces patched and glued together? Of turning him into a ball of contradictions and confusion, ticking like a bomb, because he's looking at him with a softness now that is a far cry from how repulsed he'd seemed the other day when Sam had laid beneath him? 

_I want you, stay, no leave me, I can't._

He missed him yes, had agreed upon himself to step up and have a conversation with truths laid out, but this is a surprise attack. These are new variables he had not anticipated and it was just too fucking much. 

"I uh, "Grizz pauses, shaking his head and inhaling deeply as if he's having trouble too grasping this insane, ludicrous situation, "I'm part of a ASL internship program from Notre Dame. It's a long story-we uh...we should sit down and talk?"

Once upon a time he would have seen this as serendipitous. But now its just the goddamn universe fucking with him.

Grizz has stepped and leaned back slightly yet the space between them stays the same, both hands now signing with his words, eyes beckoning softly as if to say _I come in peace, _tilting his chin and motioning towards a stone bench. 

Sam's yield is immediate, his body instinctually seeking the magnetic pull towards Grizz, but a vibrating buzz in his back pocket interrupts.

**Sam, emergency! Eden's got a fever and I know you have meetings and shit but you think you can cut it early today? I need help taking her to the doctors, want to nip this thing in the bud before it turns into something worse. Don't want it to be the flu.**

He about whoops with relief; small mercies. A chance to catch his breath, but its laced with worry. He hopes Eden is not too sick, arms already itching to gather her close. 

Grizz has waited patiently, hands aimless and awkward by his sides, his gaze burning into Sam's lowered head as he reads Becca's text. It leaves Sam self conscious and too aware and he needs to go now because Grizz is chewing the corner of his bottom lip when Sam peers up from his phone, like he does when he's anxious or about to say something that is sure to skew Sam's teetering axis.

_Breathe._

_"_I need to go-it's an emergency." 

"Ok--um, later then?" There's concern, that flashes bright and stays, but Grizz doesn't pry. "You're sleeping at home tonight?"

Sam savors the reluctance in Grizz to let him go, gets lost in his concern which could mean Sam is back in his orbit, basks in his use of "home" for their shared dorm. It's semantics, but still. 

_Let it mean what I hope it means..._

_Enough!_

"Yeah, I'll be back tonight," he promises; can't help but want to keep his word when hazel eyes are looking down at him with such intensity he needs something to anchor himself to the ground and making it difficult to turn around and go, "we'll talk then."

_I'll see you soon- _Grizz signs, offering a half-smile, his thumb and forefinger touching in a loop under his chin, with the rest of his fingers raised up as if when one motions an "OK". 

Sam blinks quickly, nods and turns away, swift before he can follow through with the sudden urge to kiss Grizz until they both see stars.

It's not the flu, and Becca and Sam both lean down to blow raspberries into Eden's wriggling tummy, grateful, as she garbled and hiccuped, finally all cried out for the day. 

Eden had started teething, which meant a slew of long tear-filled nights and a sleepless Eden and Becca. But it's not the flu or some other abhorrant baby disease because Becca might have panicked a little once Sam arrived, spewing a litany of illness she was sure could be ailing her baby. 

"Thanks for coming with, Aunt Giddy won't be back till Friday."

Its tempting, the want to offer to stay the night and the night after until Friday, but he'd promised. 

He can't stay away forever. Besides the pull is getting to be too strong.

_It's a given Becks, when it comes to Eden I drop everything and come running.- _He manipulates his hands into L-shapes in a form of finger guns that hook at the thumb of one hand and the forefinger of the other. It elicits a gummy giggle from Eden whose perched in her high chair next to his seat at the kitchen counter, as Becca grabs a cooled teething ring from the fridge, while wiping her damp brow and neck with a hand towel, fanning herself in the process. 

The sun's about to set and they've just come back from the nearest children's clinic, armed with instructions to ease Eden's discomfort and pain. Both are exhausted from having to maneuver across town with a crying, agitated baby and a hot, congested public transportation system. It's nearing fall yet sweltering was an understatement with how temperatures stayed stubbornly high.

"Don't even think about staying the night, you have some obligatory conversating with a certain someone!" She warns with a raised brow and pointed finger, settling herself down into the bar stool next to Eden's high chair, coaxing Eden to nibble onto the teething ring with a silly grin of puffed out cheeks like a monkey's.

It's scary how in tune and connected Becca was with his inner monologues and thoughts, sometimes. 

"By the way, how'd the meeting go with your adviser and interpreter? They good people?" She negates signing as she's gotten busy trying to gently wrestle the teething ring from Eden's tight grip because she's got that telltale gleam in her round eyes that promises a launching of things across the room if given the chance.

He debates whether to lie. He's entirely too tired to revisit the events of the morning, but it's Becca and she can smell a Sam Eliot lie like a blood hound. So he'll leave out details and stay vague until later.

"Pretty good. Mrs Tish, my advisor, is really sweet. She can sign," he starts off carefully, which Becca receives with a delighted interest, lips opened in a small o.

_Cool! Happy for you, Love. - _She's won the tug of war and gotten Eden to languidly chomp on the cooled ring, freeing her other hand to form a small circle with her thumb and index finger, the rest of her fingers curled in as she touches the knuckle of her index to the corner of her mouth and motions out in an arch.

"Yeah," he nods in agreement, busying his finger, stalling really, with some left over crumbs on the counter as he braces himself for the reaction that soon to come.

"My interpreter's cool, too."

"Oh yeah?" She's looked up, urging with a smile for Sam to continue.

"Yeah. It's-um...it's Grizz."

He flinches as Becca's face spasms, her head falls back slight, mouth open to what he assumes as a bark of laughter. 

"You'r getting rusty with the jokes, babe. But can you imagine?" She shakes her head at the mental image, equal parts amused and disturbed.

"Um-it's not a joke. Grizz is my interpreter." He offers the revelation with a hesitant and grimaced grin.

"Oh dear God..for real?!" Her face contorts in disbelief, aghast at the audacity of the universe for playing such cruel games. "How the fuck is that even possible?"

Sam can only sigh, shrugging into the the cool marble counter top he's pressed his forehead into. But he's not allowed to wallow for long as Becca's small but firm hand reaches in through his folded arms bracketing his head in and lifts his chin up.

_Did you guys talk at all? _\- She's concerned for sure and partly unsure how to broach and continue this insane development. 

_"_Didn't get a chance to, your text came before we could. But he _wants_ to talk. I promised him I'd come back to the dorms tonight."

"O..k good--that's progress! Better than how your initial encounter was, yeah?"

He shrugs again feeling utterly...helpless.

It must show, but then again she has a sixth sense of things when it came to Sam, because she pulls him in, running a calming hand down his back. They stay like that for a while; there really are no words for times like these. 

When it feels like he's about to nod off to sleep, Becca's ministrations on his back lulling him so, she pulls back a scant but doesn't let go of her hold on his shoulders. 

"Rum and tea with honey, Love? Iced this time cuz it's fucking hot."

He laughs, genuine and without tragic comedy, Eden joining in with glee as she kicked her chubby legs in the air.

"Rum and tea." 

Two mugs later and a good helping of left over pasta from Gideon's frozen reserves, Sam feels cool, calm, and collected. He's also bursting with how stuffed he is.

"I love her to death and her spaghetti is good shit but it's really all she cooks." Becca had conspired, revealing rows and rows of frozen pasta, wrapped in foil and stacked like bricks in a large chest freezer, as tall as Becca is, situated in the back of the walk-in pantry. He chortles, grabbing onto Becca's arm with weak hands from laughter, holding onto her because he can't trust his legs to keep him upright. She joins, giggling uncontrollably, motioning an index finger to her lips as if Aunt Giddy was around the corner and might hear.

He thanks the good Lord for inventing alcohol and giving him Becca.

After they're all giggled out, cleaned the mess of their rum and tea and pasta shenanigans, and gotten Eden all lavendery fresh from her baby shampoo, tucked and cooing content in her sleep, he heads for the door.

_Now or fucking never._

Hightailing it across the other direction, maybe backpacking across the country and joining some backwoods traveling vaudville company held an appeal. He'd need to practice but his juggling was pretty impressive. He'd miss Becca and Eden, but he could send postcards and nick-nacks he'd gather on his travels, maybe visit every couple months or so.

_Damn it all to hell._

He must have paused a little too long at the door because he feels Becca nudge him out. The deep breath he takes in shudders a little too much, but he puffs out his chest like a brave soldier sent out into toils of war, turning around briefly to give her a firm salute. 

She rolls her eyes but salutes back with a gentle smirk, sending him on his way.

It's darker than he remembers, the walk down the side pathway. The night is moonless and the scattered lamp posts barely emit back much light, so he's careful with his steps as he navigates slowly back to the dorms. There's also not much traffic, most students finding comfort in avoiding the backways at night, tho the campus is considered fairly safe with campus police making regular rounds. 

He appreciates the solitary walk back. Allows him to gather any more remnant courage the universe might be generous in allotting him. 

_It's just a conversation. Maybe he doesn't even want to talk about heavy things tonight. Probably just wants to know about my schedule and logistics of being my interpreter. There's plenty of nights ahead to delve into history. We'll ease into it. No need to rush. _

The stream of consciousness, pep talk of sorts helps, but also doesn't because he knows that's not how it works. Knows from experience and trauma and all around shit he's dealt with that things don't come easy or follow a preferred narrative. Knows to think of or prepare for the worst for self preservation. The last time he'd let his guard down--

_But Campbell's locked up. Maybe that really what's holding you back? The monster is conquered and far away. You can finally--_

His thoughts are cut short as he spots a group of four horsing around near the entrance to his dorm building, it's well lit yet far still to clearly decipher faces. Three boys and a girl; burly men really, towering over the petite, shoulder length, haired girl in denim cut offs and a tank. She seemed to be chummier with the one in joggers and a hoodie, despite the heat and humidity, having latched onto his back, forcing him to give her a piggy back ride. He's spun her around quick in retaliation until she's smacking him with a tight fist on his bicep to let her down.

Sweet boyfriend, he snorts as he saunters further forward until he stops when he's close enough to see who they are.

It's Jason and Clark and some girl he's never met before, whose grabbed a squirming but giddy Grizz by the drawstrings to his hoodie, bringing him in to shower his cheeks with kisses.

He molds himself back, into the shadowed wall, away from view as he watches Jason and Clark call out and motion for the other two to head up the short flight of stairs into the dorm entrance. Watches as Grizz pulls the girl into his side as she tucks herself in with affectionate familiarity, and leads them up and into the building, closing the door shut behind them. 

He's brought back so fast he's whiplashed and almost falls onto the paved ground below. He can feel with remembered clarity the cold metal of the lockers hitting his elbow or forearm after being pushed against it by Clark. Sees with clarity Jason's mouth twisted ugly as he calls him "Fag". Refuses to witness again Grizz with Carla on her knees--

He doesn't know how or when, but he's walked the path to Gideon's, past her front door because he won't bother or seek comfort from Becca, until he's blocks away sitting on some park bench.

Numb and unfeeling, head tilted up at the twinkling starlight, he thinks mindless things with no meaning or order because if he strung together what's really on his mind into a manageable, coherent, linear mess he might implode or the screaming would never stop. He wonders, looking up, which is really a star or a satellite or is everything really just some fucked up facade of what people wish things were until everything starts to become a watery blur and he shuts his eyes tight because he won't weep for things out of his control anymore.

When the heat wanes and the night chill, a faint preamble to coming autumn, begins to nip through his thin t shirt, his jacket of the morning forgotten at Becca's, he figures its time to head back and go to sleep. The bench is tempting but he's got a perfectly comfortable cushy bed in his dorm room, which his parents and scholarships are paying good money for and he'd be a fucking dumbass to sleep and die of hypothermia.

He's no Ophelia or Juliet. Things are over and done with and really everything makes sense now and he's a fucking weak idiot for allowing a part of himself to...hope.

Besides Becca and Eden would have his head if he up and died.

The door to his room looms unassuming before him, but coldly mocks for what it held behind. He imagines they're all still milling about inside. Jason and Clark are probably on their second pack of beers, the room smoky and reeking of weed. Grizz holed up in his room, the door locked, with mystery girl in his arms. 

The expected twisting of his gut and rancid bitterness of bile in his throat takes over, because no amount of numbing and rationalizing and closing off of his mind can deter his body's reflexive reaction to seeing or imagining Grizz with someone else. If anything his body is consistent in its derision.

He turns to leave but the RA on duty walks past and looks at him with suspicious worry he flashes a quick reassuring smile, unlocking the door with his room card and scuttles inside.

The room is empty, no rowdy, hulking football players or flirty touchy girls in sight, and he sends a silent prayer for continued small mercies, treading quickly on tiptoes towards his bedroom door. He almost makes it into his room, but Grizz's bedroom door abruptly opens and a mussed hair, Grizz, clad in black boxer shorts and a thin Henley shuffles out, rubbing sleep from his left eye.

He's most beautiful when he's most vulnerable, Sam realizes, aching something fierce for the boy. And for a brief moment he forgets the girl that surely laying in Grizz's bed waiting for him to return. 

_Hey! Sorry, I fell asleep. You hungry? I have-- _His signing is cut off by Sam's rough shaking of his head, his lips set in a tight line.

"I'm good, tired actually. Gonna head to bed, but there's a psychology seminar my professor's holding I want to attend so we'll have our first session tomorrow around 9? Good night." It's terse and his slurred tongue grapples with the pronunciation of the words' quick succession from his mouth but Grizz seems to receive the message. His initial smile that had greeted Sam gradually waning and morphing into a confused frown, as he stands unmoving from under his door frame.

He's intentional in not signing his reply, although its a fight against muscle memory and reflex. He won't meet Grizz white flag offering. Of learning his damn language to the state of familiarity as breathing? For what? 

You have someone warming your bed now. Someone society won't turn their head away in revulsion. 

Someone other than me.

_I'd thought...apparently things of no consequence because I am mistaken. _

_I've put too much meaning into things of coincidence._

He's sure to lock his door behind him, turning his phone on silent as he feels the first series of buzzes alerting messages from whoever he will ignore tonight, hoping its not Becca, as he changes for bed. Lays in it but never really sleeps. Stays in a state of wakefulness and half dreams.

Thanks whoever cares to listen that he can not hear.

The smell of bacon, surely sizzling and browning to a delicious crisp, wakes him and his mouth waters to the growling of his stomach. Sighing in resignation, he gets up, the call of caramelized pork goodness winning out against the want to hide away forever until he's a shriveled up pile of dust the school would have to sweep away in order for the next arriving freshman to occupy his space.

He craves a hot long bath but doesn't trust himself to make the series of trips back and forth from room to bath to room again when Grizz is outside probably all gooey and shit with mystery girl as she's making him breakfast. So he changes into a fresh pair of navy fleece joggers and a light cream sweater, noting how downcast and considerably colder the day looks and feels out his open window. He spritzes an ample amount of body spray, gargles with mouthwash and resolutes to shower extra long and brush his teeth twice at Becca's later.

Grizz is alone, his back to Sam, dressed and ready for the day in black jeans and a white marbleized hoodie, when Sam leaves his room, head nodding to some beat or song Sam can't hear, as he flips a frying egg from the hot pan to the platter already full of crisp bacon that taunts and beckons Sam for a bite.

He shuffles forward as Grizz turns around to place the platter on the kitchen table, Sam figures Grizz must have brought in with him during move in day, and is consequently startled, almost dropping the bacon and eggs all over the floor.

Before he can mourn the loss to the carpet below, Grizz catches his balances and manages to get the platter of food onto the table next to a plate of hashbrowns and pancakes, unscathed, offering a toothy half smile to Sam as if proud in his save.

"Morning!" The greeting is chipper, the weirdness of the night before all but forgotten, and Sam almost meets it with an equally sunny grin but he holds back offering a small smile instead. 

It's not lost on Grizz and he blinks, his grin wavering as he tucks an errant bang from his brow to the back of his ear, a nervous tick he hasn't outgrown. But he inhales deep and motions for Sam to come to the table as he sits himself down and starts to heap his plate with food. 

They eat in silence, and its far from companionable, a fucked up variation of how Sam had once envisioned living with Grizz would be like. Sam feels Grizz's occasional wondering gaze in his periphery, but the bacon is delicious, smothered with yolk and sandwiched between a piece of hashbrown and pancake, culminating into the perfect bite and he about swoons he can't shovel it into his mouth quick enough. His cheeks puffed and bursting with food, as he chomps in bliss, he almost misses the light touch of fingers on his chin, that lifts up his head from his plate to see Grizz staring back, eyes crinkled with bright amusement, the half smile returned.

"You um..have food on your face." His thumb returns to gently wipe at some remnant crumb dangerously close to Sam's lower lip. 

Sam flinches back as if scalded, swallowing thick a large piece of jagged bacon that cuts his throat and threatens to choke. Grizz returns the flinch, jaw clenched as he lowers his head down to his plate, reprimanded. Leaning on a forearm, he proceeds to stab at the limp, innocent, lone pancake with his fork, muttering incoherent things Sam can't read.

_Breathe._

It's the cue for Sam to get up from the table, taking his half eaten plate to the sink, ignoring the hot steady gaze that follows him. 

"I'm going to go gather my things. We should head out soon?" 

The reply is a wordless nod, a somber tone now washed over Grizz's stony features.

He keeps his head down or away, avoiding Sam's eyes as they leave soon after.

The walk to the lecture hall is awkward and silent and long. The gloom of the day, as pregnant thunder clouds loomed over head, did not ease their situation. Grizz stayed a step behind during the trek, and its a disconcerting feeling, Sam's want to turn around and make sure Grizz was still following but too chicken to do so. Like Orpheus, praying to the gods and hoping against all hope Eurydice was still behind as he lead them out of the underworld.

There's a strong urge to also scurry away, but what was new?

When they finally arrive at the lecture hall, it's already filled to capacity with empty seats left in the far back. Sam is grateful, wanting nothing more than to blend into the walls of the space. He leads them to a seat near the aisle, almost grabs for Grizz's hand at one point, forgetting but thinks better of it; Grizz situating himself in a borrowed chair from the student teacher assisting Sam's professor, face away from the stage and towards Sam.

The lecture is titled "Exploring and Understanding the Psyche of Mental Instability: What Makes a Psychopath Tick?"

Grizz appears to start, stumbling over his translation, his gaze snapping up and boring onto Sam whose line of sight stays focused on Grizz's moving hands. When Grizz stops all together, hand falling to his lap, he's sharp and harsh in returning the look, challenging him to react more. It's a hard watery look that regards him back, Grizz's lips trembling as a lone tear spills and falls quick down his cheek.

_Breathe._

He hadn't meant..this was unintentional. He wants to kick himself for picking such a lecture to attend. He should have gone alone.

_Breathe. _

But he no longer can.

So he runs.

He runs into the stormy, deluge outside, having finally fallen from the swollen dark clouds above. The lightening is violent in its sporadic flashing, but it gives little light as Sam looks, frantic, for covering he can seek refuge under, far from the lecture hall, the rain falling fast into his eyes. He's soaked, wet curls slicked heavy onto his scalp, as he blindly runs across the courtyard towards a group of aged trees in an arched line bordering a clearing underneath. He pauses to catch his breath, to cry or perhaps to stop, he can no longer tell rain from tears. 

And it's a melee of limbs as he grapples to get away from the sudden hold around his waist, the heaving chest flushed against his back rumbling with the vibrations akin to a growl. He seizes his fight, defeated as he hangs his head low, tired, feeling himself turned around, his face grasped gently by the jaw with hands that shake.

"Why'd you let him win?" Grizz questions, desperate fingers signing along into the wet skin of Sam's neck; his mouth twisted in anguish with wild eyes, curtained by wet stringy clumps of his dark locks, pulling at truths Sam is not ready to give.

But when he opens his mouth to lie, it's swallowed into silence by Grizz hungry lips on his own.

Tasting, biting, devouring.

He let's Grizz consume him.


	7. Will You Bring Me Back To Life? Part II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And switching back to Grizz, months before his ASL internship begins.
> 
> The games are afoot...and the victor is....

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Italics are thoughts...italics followed by [-] pertain to signing.
> 
> Listening accompaniment ~ Manchester Orchestra - Maze, suggested by shyoushouldseemeinacrown on Tumblr....it's the song played when Grizz and the explorers find land and turkeys.  
~ Olafur Arnalds - Happiness Does Not Wait

I_ notice you when you're noticing me_

_Breaking the habit, you're watching me sleep_

_Oh, give me some time, let me learn how to speak_

_I'm a maze to you_

_I never mind about bothering you_

_I'm trying to decide if I'll bother with you_

_So, feed me your wisdom and breathe me your truth_

_I'm amazing_

_Wish me a wonder and wish me to sleep_

_You don't have to wander to hear when I speak_

\----------------------------------------------------------------------

Grizz's second semester is a flurry of activity.

It's a merciful thing.

Allows little time to mourn the bigoted views of his father, so quick to abandon him for his intolerant god of hellfire, and the devastation of his loyal mother to losing a son. 

Along with Gwen, they are accepted into the ASL internship program with little difficulty upon recommendation from their professor that they were the best candidates to be considered. His schedule is chock full of mock interpreting workshops and practice sessions, studying and preparing for several mandatory assessments, and perfecting simultaneous interpreting, the method of choice needed for lecture hall situations that he'd have to provide for his assigned student. 

The internship included a hefty stipend and pay; with his scholarships, financially he would survive without his father's hand me outs. 

As Gwen had offered, schemed really, she'd managed to persuade, her senior adviser aunt, a Mrs. Tish, to assign Grizz as Sam's interpreter. 

"You should be kissing the balls of my feet, Visser, but a dozen chocolate cream donuts, will do." She'd stood at his door one morning, a week before finals, with the sun barely setting and an irritating smirk on her smug face.

"Disgusting. And that's a hard pass." Its a deadpan retort, delivered with a rolling of eyes. He'd only just gotten out of bed, head still fogged with sleep, but his pulse quickens to a turbulent buzz.

This was really happening.

The stars were aligning. But maybe a little too much and far too easily because he feared some terrible repercussion.

That was how the world he knew worked. It did not give freely without a toll to pay. Some gold token or sacrifice to hand over to the boatman in exchange for safe passage to take back his beloved.

He forges on, despite, hoping everything that's already transpired is enough. That the powers that be have been entertained enough on his account; gorged full, they'll finally leave him be.

Summer break brings back the reality of no longer having a home to return to, hitting so hard, it stuns. But Gwen is there to distract and comfort, the Pattersons welcoming him, arms wide without conditions, to stay for the next coming summers and Christmases and everything in between for as long as he'd have them. 

"I've always wanted a younger brother!"

"We're the same age, Gwen."

"Not by months, we're not."

"You going to be one of those annoying, bitchy, big sister types?"

"You betcha, wittle bro!" Pinching his left cheek hard in mock affection, her mouth puckered in baby talk.

The cracked pieces of his heart are patched with the balm of Mrs Patterson's warmth and acceptance, though the places where they've split are large and barely fit back together. He hugs her a little too long and a little too tight when she'd insisted on being called "Mama", and he's coddled and fattened on home cooked meals, sage words, and love.

Mama tells him to be patient, time is the best remedy for certain things, and eventually mindsets will turn and cold stubborn hearts can thaw to remember a son trumped any holy doctrine that dictated who you should or should not be with. 

"You're a good son, Gareth. A good person. Yes, life can be cruel and unfair, but good things do happen to good people."

When he finally tells the trio of his Columbia internship, Jason and Clark are beyond elated, not thinking much to question why it was an ASL internship. Luke, however, is very observant, had always been more in-tune with him, but had the mind to wait on Grizz to open up when he was ready. He's also understandably jealous and a touch bitter, not bothering to hide his disgruntlement during face-time. So they suggests a road-trip to visit him at Berkeley, since he was staying for summer classes.

Gwen comes with and Grizz catches how Clark is immediately smitten. Catches the gleam in his eye that promises a wooing of sorts will go down during the trip.

"You're my brother, Clark, but she's my sister, too. Don't fuck it up and act like a big lug." Grizz knows Clark's idiotic and Casanova ways, but Clark is also sweet, if a little misguided, and Gwen did have a penchant for pet projects. 

"No worries brah, everyone loves my big D!"

"My case in point, exactly! She has a mean right hook and her elbows are hella sharp so...don't say I didn't warn you."

Grizz prays Clark comes out unscathed as Gwen quickly takes to him like one would a big, mentally bumbling, puppy.

The trip is full of shenanigans and close calls that's got Grizz realizing he's the only sane person in the group; Jason always had his head in the clouds and Gwen and Clark make a fucking scary, impulsive duo that one too many times almost cost him a limb or two. 

But he's the first to admit, he wouldn't trade them or these moments that dim unwanted thoughts and help him forget, for anything, even if its just for a little while.

They drink a whole lot, smoke even more, and take pictures with quaint gingerbread houses and kooky statues made of chewed up gum. They hike and yell hopes and dreams into cavernous structures that lead into waterfalls and stare up in wonderment at a starlit night that filters through the canopy of giant sequoias.

"And into the forest I go, to lose my mind and find my soul. It's John Muir." He can't help but offer veneration to the aged, sacred trees, towering above, receiving a chorus of groans and a pelting of marshmallows and graham cracker pieces. 

Everyone falls fast asleep to the rhythmic lullaby of cicadas chirping, but he stays awake, wishing a blue-eyed someone was laying next to him, tucked close and tight in his arms as they talked about everything and nothing, like they'd used to. Wondering how things would be, if everything had played out differently and he'd gotten Sam to be his.

Things would be...definitely good.

He blames the raw, power of the woods, lit by a luminescent full moon, that have seduced many souls before him to bare their skin and partake upon carnal things. Blames the weed lulling his inhibitions, because he's suddenly hard and wanting. Images that curl his toes and turn his eyes black, get him aching to have Sam under him, naked and writhing, where he could sink his teeth into his supple, freckled skin, he'd felt often enough during hugs that edged on being more than innocent and lingering, stolen touches. Mad hungry to lick the salt of his sweat at the juncture of his neck. The smooth, pale expanse of skin that always left him wild and fevered whenever Sam would tilt his head up or turn just so as if he knew what it did to Grizz. Feel how electric the air would get, because Grizz was seconds from fucking it all and slamming Sam against the wall or pinning him down on the floor where they're sat doing homework, until he's got the younger boy into a mewling, moaning mess, rocking into him, back arching, overwhelmed as he---

God, he wouldn't even know where to begin or how. Wondering if Sam had ever or since, after their separation.

They'd never really talked about things like that during their brief friendship. It was dangerous grounds neither had the guts to venture, then.

Panic suddenly draws a metallic taste in his mouth as he'd bit the side of his tongue.

The thought of someone else touching Sam.

Tasting him.

Making him come.

Boils his blood molten. 

_He's mine_, an insane, irrational, possessive beast snarls in his head.

Fuck. 

Does he even have the right after what Sam had seen prom night?

Sam's tortured look, a constant in his nightmares, curls him up into himself, the cold of the night, unforgivingly harsh against his back as he shut his eyes trying to forget.

_I am half agony, half hope._

After two weeks on the road, they arrive to a bursting Luke, who barrels into them with a smothering hug that they meet as enthusiastically. 

He waits until a couple days pass, happy to just be with his best friends, before he decides to gather the trio and talk things out, something he'd planned to do for months after his coming out to his parents and figured this trip would be a good time for revelations.

Halfway through their stay, all crammed into a cozy air-bnb near campus, he decides to drop the bombshell over rubbery scrambled eggs and burnt toast because it was Jason's turn to make breakfast. Gwen makes an early exit, headed for a visit at the local farmer's market, to offer some privacy.

"I'm gay."

It's a muffled declaration as he tried to chewed around a chunk of inedible egg, it helped mask the uncertainty and slight trembling in his voice. He knew they'd take to it, positively, but he still can't help but feel vulnerable and worry about the infinitesimal chance they might react as his parents had. 

The collective response is a "we've been known brah, but also maybe you weren't, so we waited until you were ready to say so," leaving him nonplussed and perturbed. Apparently, he hadn't played straight as well as he'd thought.

Had they seen the heated looks he'd steal at Sam during lunch?

The want in his eyes when Sam laughed or really when Sam was just being Sam.

Perhaps.

But these were, also the people he was closest to, who they knew him through and through, so of course they'd see into his farce.

When he tells them about his parents, they gather him in and cry with him; they too have lost a mother and father. They gather him in until the tears have calmed and his hurt is numbed.

"By the way, sorry for using the F word so much, but Sam Eliot deserved it for what he did to you!"

Jason's voice escalated with his point, a fire flashing in his eyes and Grizz can only imagine how Sam must have felt to be on the receiving end of such rage.

"What did Sam do to me, Jason?" He's careful at poking the subject that's long been put to rest, perhaps forgiven if not forgotten. He understands their hostility. They were only defending and exacting retribution, if a bit mindless and blind, because they were loyal to a fault and would stand by him first, asking questions much later, if even ever. And in his anguished anger, he'd abused that loyalty.

"The little creep took advantage of you!" Clark jumps in, a burn of scarlet travels from his cheeks to the tips of his ears and a vein bulging on his temple, whispering heatedly in disgust, "he could have--!"

Luke stays silent. He had been silent then, choosing a neutral passive stance, so he had no right to speak now. Yet he throws Grizz a pointed look, but with a reassuring squeeze to his shoulder that said they could talk things out later if needed, as he hurries to get up and head out for morning classes. 

"Best believe, I put a stop to it! Told him what I'd do if he tried anything else!" Clark continues, a darkness sweeping over his soft features, many had thought adorably sweet because of sleepy, hooded eyes and pillowy lips, now morphed into a mean scowl. It's an unsettling glimpse into what Clark could become. Seen it often enough on the field, Clark's capability to manifest into something vicious and terrifying.

His thoughts grow manic in its gory imaginings of what Clark could have said to Sam. Was it worse than what he'd seen when Clark pushed Sam into the lockers?

"Did you threaten him, Clark?" He levels his breathing. Ignores the itch in his knuckled fist that suddenly craved the tender bit of Clark's nose.

Grizz forces himself to finally stomach and confront the undisclosed details surrounding what it had meant when Jason said Clark would take care of Sam. When he'd been too lost in self pity and hurt pride, lies were allowed to fester when he'd chosen to stay silent and look away, manipulating the goodness of his friends into sinister things.

"Yeah I did! I told him they'd be scraping his guts off the wall if he even dare look at you funny!" The confession is with a sadistic, proud grin, exacerbating the itch in his fists, now balled even tighter, his nails having surely drawn blood. So he gets up from his perch on the stool near the kitchen counter and walks to the arched doorway that lead into the foyer because his vision has turned a violent red.

He reminds himself their aggression is warranted, which quiets the growling in his mind that wants to claw and tear and destroy.

If only he'd spoken up.

If only he did not need to retaliate and hurt Sam back just so his own hurt could stop somehow, none of this would have played out as it had.

Jason must have seen the change because he swats Clark to shut the hell up. 

It was goddamn time for transparency, anyway.

"Sam didn't do anything wrong," he begins, keeping his gaze steady out the window of the adjacent living room, as he tried to still the wavering in his voice. "None of what was spread around was true. The shit that Campbell said?--Lies!"

"The night before our last game, we'd kissed. And that was it. I was done lying and denying. I was going to tell him I loved him the next night. Screwing it all and coming out because he was it for me. I was willing to lose mom and dad if it meant I got to keep him. But then shit happened. Campbell must have said or done something big...something that made Sam say terrible things."

"I tried telling him I loved him, the next night under the bleachers, but he wouldn't believe. Told me he didn't want me, even when his eyes said different...His eyes---" the crack in his voice choked him to stop. Memories of everything he'd pushed away, barely divulging details even to Gwen, suddenly return with vivid, sharp clarity. The taste of Sam's lips that night as the younger boy kissed him back just as hungry and wanting and the feel of the hard cement wall against his back as he waited for Sam in the hideout, pummels into him full throttle. The pain hurts again, a gnawing sting in its deep cut, the scabbed wound reopening.

"I pushed, so desperate to have him, so I had that fight with Campbell. Maybe if I could get him to confess the truth? But by some fucked up reason Sam defended the bastard. So I kept my mouth shut. Looked the other way. Let him get treated like shit. Because I thought he deserved it. Because being angry was so much better than--

"Fuck...!" He turns to Clark's gasped exclamation, coated thick with tormented horror,"He must have been so scared! The things I said...and did!--He was my friend, I didn't know!"

Jason's face mirrored the ashen pallor of Clark's face as he looked to be seconds from retching on the ground. 

Because of him, they've come to this. 

He hopes it's not too late and everything isn't in vain.

That Sam will still have him and his friends don't hate him like he does.

"I'm sorry," he whispers into the room, eyes on he ground, knowing it's a pathetic and futile attempt at mending broken things. 

His friends, his brothers, prove to be bigger men of worth and forgiveness. They understand somehow and he thinks he does not deserve them.

"It's fucking love, man. Makes you do dumb shit," Jason tells him, a rare moment of wisdom that Grizz grabs at, grateful.

They get stupid drunk that night, feasting on roasted root vegetables with garlic butter and grilled steak Gwen had gotten from her trip to the farmer's market. Eating and drinking away their tumult of emotions. 

Bellies full of good food and spirits, his tongue loosens as he opens up more, what he could or knew about Campbell's psychosis and what Sam must have dealt with through the years. Yet, he himself could not fathom the extent of Campbell's abuse.

The guilt is a loud roar in his mind.

_Forgive me._

Is the mantra that forever repeats.

_Please love me back._

Clark speaks up first after he can't share any longer. Swears he'll make it up to Sam, after he finds out Sam is one of the incoming freshman for fall semester. 

"I'll get Mama to give me her recipe. I'll bake him a bunch of those chocolate muffins he loves so much."

Grizz only wishes it was that easy, exchanging a bittersweet smile with Gwen as she leans in to kiss Clark on the cheek, her eyes wet.

"I should have said something. Should have listened to my gut. I knew Sam wasn't those things Campbell had spread," Luke tells him later, while the others were busy clearing the kitchen table, devastated in his remorse. "But I'd thought you needed time to figure things out and was it really my place? I didn't know the details. I thought I was overstepping, which was fucking stupid. I was a coward. I should have said something."

He shakes his head, furiously, trying to convey what his words can't say through the tight hug he brings Luke into.

"That wasn't your burden to carry. Even if you'd said something I still would have carried on acting like an ass."

Luke does not believe him in the way his mouth twists, eyes hard, but he relents. Grizz hopes one day if not soon, Luke would let the guilt go.

They finish off their visit on a high.

Day tripping to the beach when Luke was free, attending some end of the summer frat parties, and general carousing with good food. On their last day, by some moment of spontaneity they decide on getting tattoos, to commemorate their youth, friendship, hopes and dreams. Aside from Gwen, who gets a minimalist script tattoo of _Be Wild_ on her wrist, the four get matching Centurion battle axes and their individual football jersey numbers on various parts of their body. Grizz chooses his forearm, with the number 13 by the crook of his elbow. It was the most visible place to ink among the four, but Grizz was no longer going to live a life of discretion. And before he could change his mind, he motions the artist for another on his shoulder, while the others were still busy being inked. It stung a lot more, but he relished in the pain, a form of self flagellation. He tells the artist to cover it quick once he was done before the others could see. It was for him alone and one other, that might or might not ever see it. 

Luke is reluctant to let them go, but he promises a visit to Columbia some time during the coming spring. And Christmas break just around the corner after all.

"Good luck," Luke whispers into his ear after a last goodbye hug. He returns it with a half smile; takes courage, he'll need, in the sentiment.

Its a shorter trip back, dropping off their rental car as they took to the skies, leaving them with about a week or so to get ready for the coming fall semester. Jason and Clark continued ahead for their pre-season, football conditioning camp before school started and he's nostalgic, wishing he could join, having dropped football in order to focus on academics and his ASL internship. But it's for the best. Too much of his football life was too connected to the type of person his father and mother had crafted and engineered him to be.

It was time for new beginnings and living a life that was his own.

Two days before they'd pack up Gwen's SUV to head to the city for move in day, he gets an email finally notifying him who his roommate was to be.

He about suffers a stroke.

**Sam Eliot**, in block letters, unblinkingly bright against the garish white of his laptop screen.

His narratives of the future always had Sam and him living together.

But not like this.

In an alternate reality, he'd be hooting and hollering from such happy news, but they hadn't even spoken in more than a year. Grizz had hoped to ease Sam into things. Being his interpreter was already a bit much. There were nights he couldn't sleep, mind racing at the absurdity of everything. That maybe this was a terrible idea and would only push Sam further away. That the younger boy would be too scarred for second chances and would refuse to have him as his interpreter. 

But now this. 

Fuck, because his thoughts are mush and a whole year living with Sam and the possibilities of the situation is too much to wrap around especially when he's suddenly, achingly hard. 

_Fuck._

Gwen takes several minutes having a grand old time, laughing, when she finds out, as he stood outside her bedroom door looking back stupidly, nose flared in irritation.

"Oh. My. Fucking. Lord! It's legit meant to be. The universe loves you my good man! I mean...this is fucking fate, Grizz!" She ends her spiel with an enthusiastic gesticulating of arms that's now shaking him by the wrists to join her in the silly jig she's suddenly dancing, grinning so wide he'd thought her cheeks would burst and split.

"Am I in a rom-com right now? Like, am I the sexy-bitch sidekick?" He huffs a long exasperated exhale and flips her the bird, slinking back to the guest room to finish packing.

So much for care and understanding.

Packing and figuring out the logistics of fitting a small kitchen table and its matching chairs, courtesy of Mama Patterson because they were unused and catching dust in the garage, into Gwen's SUV, already full of boxes, keeps his mind busy and calm somehow.

The drive up, loud with Gwen's incessant chatter and sing-a-long to a loop of Celine Dion's greatest hits and a young Kanye West, keeps his mind busy and calm somehow.

Even as he's stood outside his dorm room hours later after having been dropped by Gwen with a suitcase of necessities because the sun has set hours ago and they'll move everything else in the next day, key card in hand with a packet of dorm rules and important contact info, staring at the posted names on the door that indicates it's his and Sam's room, he's calm somehow.

When he enters, it's empty and eerily quiet and bare, save for the coffee table in the middle of the living room next to a peeling and old leather couch. His tensed muscles, the only tell that perhaps he's not so calm and collected, ease up to know Sam may have not yet arrived. But the bedroom nearest their shared bath is closed and when he treads over, turning the knob he finds it’s locked.

_Fuck._

Sam Eliot is on the other side of the door and he's hanging onto his doorknob like some creeper trying to sneak in, so he lets go and jumps back as if scalded, chest heaving fast as he waits for the door to open, revealing an angry Sam. 

Several seconds pass, a slow crawl, but he stays frozen. A 6’2, looming guy with terror in his eyes, legs tensed to run.

He should run.

Run into the unoccupied bedroom and barricade the door until morning, but he can’t move.

He’d laugh if his mouth wasn’t made of ice and concrete. 

The door never opens, in fact it stays closed and locked all night. 

He'd thought to knock, gaining a sudden rush of bravado. They’d see each other soon enough, but drops his head in shame remembering Sam won't hear it. 

It's now past midnight and he wagers the younger boy had probably gone to bed before he'd arrived, remembers Sam can sleep like the dead, which wasn't on the account of his lack of hearing. He'd always slept so deeply even before his hearing loss. Remembers Sam falling asleep one weekend while they were having a Hitchcock marathon, his head heavy on Grizz's shoulder. Felt the tickle of red curls against his cheek, the faint smell of cinnamon that made his mouth go dry.

It was heaven and he'd wanted to stay like that forever; if only his left side hadn't gone painfully numb. Trying to wake Sam then was a battle, where he'd had to resort in pinching the sleeping boy hard on the arm, startling Sam awake with a pained yelp and an elbow to the ribs.

A loud ping from his phone breaks his reverie.

**Lover boy, how'd it go?? You guys all fucked out yet? That the reason for radio silence?!?**

_Fuckin, Gwen. _

He blushes hot.

**Hell no! Crude much...I think he's sleeping. Arrived with one of the bedrooms closed and locked.**

**Oh please, like you don't have plans to jump him the first chance you get. Brilliant blue eyes, Visser! And them lips...shit! But why'd he lock the door tho?**

**I'll be blocking you for the night, now...talk to you tomorrow.**

He returns to his lock screen, ignoring the answering message, that surely equal parts whiny and angry, with a sharp click and puts his phone on silent. 

The locked door and what it could mean finally hits and jars him. He hopes he's reading too deep and Sam had just locked it by reflex. Reflex because of Campbell, that kept him on constant alert with paranoia as a bedfellow.

Still.

He heads to his room, anxiety shifted to a darker and more grim mood. Tries to sleep, but the unfamiliar bed is hard and uncomfortable and his mind won't quiet.

_Sam already wants nothing to do with you. He's obviously known your his roommate. That's why he went to bed early with the goddamn door fucking locked. Your chances are shot. Might as well pack up and leave now while you still have your dignity intact._

He remembers the bottle of good whiskey, packed up in his suitcase, he'd taken from his dad's collection before leaving for college. Figured his father wouldn't notice since it was such a massive collection. Felt a rush of satisfaction discovering it was really good imported liquor after his parents disowned him. Was saving it for some special occasion and thinks now was a good time as ever.

Knocks back gulps of the burning liquid from the fancy glass tumbler it comes with. Shot after shot that sends fire down his spine and warms his mind, until he's reached the bottom and everything is fine again. 

He twirls and flies with the spinning world that goes black.

His cheek is pressed into the wrinkled leather of the couch he's curled into on his side, drool wet at corner of his mouth, but it's the soft caress by his temple, fingers playing with his hair falling from its topknot hold, that brings him to a muddled wakefulness. He's sure it's a dream because a squirming Sam is now beneath him, eyes so brilliant blue it's blinding, his left thigh in between Sam's splayed legs, hands gripping his wrists above his head. 

"Sam," he breathes out like some reverent prayer, for the dream is a good dream because everything feels so real. 

When Sam turns from him, neck enticing, tempting, he leans in, lips ghosting precariously close, tongue wanting a lick. His left hand releases its hold of Sam's wrists, following down the line of Sam's side until he reaches the hem of his shirt. Slipping inside, he hooks his finger onto the belt loop of Sam's jeans that have ridden low and pulls down, baring his hip for Grizz to grab, the skin naked and heated. His eyes roll back at the feel of it.

_Fuck._

Grizz brings him in even closer. 

God, he wants him! Wants the dream to end like it always does; thrusting into Sam, tight and hot, relentless and fast until Sam's coming hard and loud, him soon after with Sam's name roaring from his lips.

The push on his chest, that's desperate and determined jolts him from this delicious dream and almost knocks him of the edge of the couch onto the floor below. He catches himself just in time, landing on his haunches on the other side of the couch and realizes its no dream.

He's hungover and still crazy drunk and Sam is there, flesh and bone and not conjured by imagination, still on his back looking utterly terrified. 

Fuck!

He hates himself with a revulsion that wants to scour his skin with acid. 

When the younger boy has gone, escaped out the door with a haste, he hangs his head and weeps.

"I fucked up," he calls Gwen much later, steadying the wet hitch in his breath.

"What you mean? Everything good?"

He appreciates this rare show of solemnity. It was no time for shits and giggles.

"I got drunk last night. I was stupid and finished off a whole bottle of whiskey. I think I attacked him." The shaking in his voice returns.

"WHAT YOU MEAN YOU ATTACKED HIM? WHO? SAM??"

"I don't...know."

"I'm coming over."

He was going to be sick.

He makes it just in time, purging everything into the kitchen sink until his belly feels raw and empty. Gwen arrives soon after, wrinkled nose at the stench but softens with concern at his clammy and pale face. The coffee she's brought helps a little, clearing his head slight. She helps clear it further when she insists he recount everything that happened, assessing with kid gloves and concluding what really happened.

"You fucking scared me Grizz! Shit! But attack him you did not."

"And they called him a sex-crazed freak! I'm the sex-crazed freak!"

"Well, don't say I didn't foresee this--"

"Shut up, Gwen." 

"Look," her tone is gentle and reassuring, easing the hysteria of possibly hurting Sam in the worst way,"you were drunk as all hell because you got scared and this morning you thought you were dreaming, ok? Nothing was intentional or in your control, which would not excuse such behavior in similar circumstances, but nothing bad happened."

He wants to believe but he's also wants to play martyr. Wants to wallow in his woe. Wants to crawl into some hole thousands of feet under, where he could petrify into dust and dirt in peace.

"This run-around and avoiding and assumptions of shit needs to fucking stop, now! We're not in some damn Jane Austen novel. You need to talk to him!"

She's right. 

He'd come here for that sole purpose. To talk with Sam. Dig through the graveyard of their mess and attempt at salvaging things in hopes of having some sort of something with the younger boy.

He could wait forever if he had to, until Sam would want him back.

Like he'd never stopped for Sam.

Sam doesn't return that night, and he can't blame him. Gives him time to regroup.

"It's fine, Grizz. He can't avoid you tomorrow. He's scheduled to meet his interpreter, right? You'll definitely see him then." Gwen is his voice of reason. Helps him sleep a little less fitful that night, tho his mind is still loud which he tries to turn into white noise.

He's a pathetic, love-sick fool, who grabs at scraps Sam is willing to give.

He'd almost lost him again the next afternoon.

Doesn't remember Sam being so fast. But he'd caught him.

Caught him by the waist that feels like it was made for his hands to hold.

Begging, was an understatement because he was seconds from falling to his knees to plead in hopes Sam would agree to talk to him. The words that come tumbling from his mouth feel sloppy and muddled, his signing that accompanies feels unnatural and wrong, but Sam accepts, promising to come back, after attending to some emergency he stays silent about, to their dorm that night. Their dorm he'd called "home" by the slip of the tongue that really can't be a slip because the urge to kiss him is strong and his mind is sentimental and wrought with love sonnets he wants to whisper against Sam's lips, hoping its want that's mirrored in Sam's shining blue eyes.

_God, he missed him._

He finally meets up with Jason and Clark, both tackling into him like overgrown puppies, Gwen rolling her eyes, amused by the sidelines. He feels lighter and brimming with hope.

_Things will be good after tonight. _

_True hope is swift and flies with swallows' wings._

He prays the Bard's words are right, that miracles can come of it.

The trio help him move the kitchen table and chair set still packed into Gwen's car, joking and laughing through the muggy sweat of the day and the flight of stairs they had to climb because somehow the elevators were busted. But it's all inconsequential because nothing could wreck his joy. The drastic change of his demeanor must be infectious because Gwen is as happy, jumping onto his back for a piggy-back ride, her excitement evident, and showering his cheeks with kisses. 

An hour later, he shoos them out, thinking Sam will arrive any minute. They leave him with well wishes, mostly dirty and salacious, but he accepts, chuckling good-naturedly.

A thrum of anxious panic starts when the room is once again empty, but he anchors himself onto the potential of the night ending well. Clears the room a bit to distract the trembling of his bones. Wipes at invisible dust and lint from the scant furniture in their small living room and kitchen, until it's past 10 and Sam still hasn't returned. 

He shuts out the nagging voice, that's insidious and needy in wanting to pop the happy bubble he's just gotten into; decides to take a small nap because he's suddenly exhausted.

Things get fucked again.

He's whip-lashed and sore from the sudden change in Sam, when he's awoken past midnight by the opening and close of the front door. Sam no longer wants to talk and walls are up again, so he's unable to ask why he looks to have been crying.

Grizz does not sleep that night.

The attempt at thawing the ice in the room the next morning with breakfast and happy vibes he forces upon himself to bounced back onto Sam fails miserably.

When Sam flinches from his touch as if burned, he stops, giving up.

Tho the feel of Sam's skin, so close to his lips, lingers on his fingertips.

The trek to the lecture hall is cold and distant, the gloom that rises from them, up into the heavy dark clouds, seconds from spilling, encompasses everything in their wake. The rigidness of Sam's back as he walked ahead, is taut tight like a bow about to fire, it's arrow aimed at Grizz's heart, intention to injure and hurt. 

And when he discovers what the lecture is about, the arrow is poisoned, twisted into the organ, and snapped in half, its tip left embedded, contaminating the blood.

_He won't sit down to talk about things but this is the lecture he wants me to interpret?_

Is it some fucked up way at exacting revenge? Toying and giving hope, a back and forth of confusing emotions and he does not know whether to slam his fist into the wall behind Sam's head or grab his face blindly, because his sight is now blurred by tears, to kiss him hard.

To remind him what they once had. 

But it's Sam that runs away and he does not understand.

He does not wait to chase after. 

_ENOUGH!_

He'd grabbed him from behind with a snarl, anger coursing electricity into the faltering pulse in his veins, Sam's wet back slamming into his chest. He grapples Sam's fighting arms into stillness, rain slicked curls flush against the expanse of his neck as Grizz, takes a moment to catch his breath. But when he turns Sam around by the waist, and he stares back up at him, a tragic beauty with oceans eyes, he melts.

"Why did you let him win?" It spills the flood of everything he'd battled through and felt and wept about, culminating into an agonizing hurt that's metastasized into the marrow of his bones, only the taste of Sam's lips could assuage, so he surges forward capturing them with his own.

He's insatiable.

Unable to tame his wild tongue that wants to lap up the taste of Sam with abandon. It travels through nips and licks from Sam's lips that's kissing him back, opening with a dart of his own tongue to beckon for Grizz to flick at, down Sam's neck, sweet of rain water, until it's found the soft pad of Sam's ear to suck that elicits an obscene whimper, getting Grizz harder than he already was.

His roaming hands can't seem to touch or keep Sam close enough, which Sam joins with as much fervor, this feral primitive dance Grizz barely knows the steps to, his clawed fingertips slipping under Grizz's hoodie to rake lines up his back.

And when he pushes Sam into the wide trunk of one of the Oak trees Sam had run under for cover, hiking up Sam's left thigh by the underside of his knee, keeping him open so he can feel Grizz's hard length against his own.

_This is what you do to me. _

_What you've always done to me._

When he's guiding him by the hip, as Sam's hooked his leg tight around Grizz's waist, to rock into him, languid and slow, Sam moans a pained, wanting, "Take me home."

_Fuck._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The true hope quote in italics is by Shakespeare.


	8. Bring Me Back Into The Light

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning good readers...it's gonna get lowkey dirty?  
Sam's inner psyche gets messed with, he's a bundle of confusion ...but it ends well...
> 
> High key indulgent chapter...enjoy :D

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Italics are thoughts, Italics with [-] pertain to signing.
> 
> Listening accompaniment: ~ Tom Odell - Can't Pretend  
~ John Mayer - Slow Dancing in a Burning Room  
(The lyrics don't really follow through with the story...but also lowkey does. It's the damn guitar, fucking sexy as shit melody that really fits with this chap.)  
~ Novo Amor - Carry You  
~ Tom Odell - Heal

Love, I have wounds,

Only you can mend. 

Feel, my skin is rough,

But it can be cleansed.

And my arms are tough,

They can be bent.

And I wanna fight,

But I can't contend.

I guess that's love,

I can't pretend.

Oh feel our bodies grow,

And our souls they blend.

Yeah love I hope you know,

How much my heart depends.

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

He's possessed.

A wild beast has shed its fur, and now wears his own like a new pelt. It worships upon the alter of Dionysus and imbibed on Grizz's tongue, a more potent elixir than any spirit he's ever drunk; spiced and heady.

It hits straight to his swelling cock.

Grizz has stopped, somehow, the ministrations on his ear, having moved to the curve of his neck, he almost whines at the loss. Grizz breathes him in deep, as if gathering himself, his wet breath burning Sam's already scorched skin. The death grip on his thigh stays, but the hand on his nape cradles it so carefully, a disparity with how carnal the moment is. Like he's fragile glass.

Stained glass in a cathedral that follows the devil's bible.

Their hardened lengths touch again and Sam's hips spams against his will. 

He's not thinking of sound mind, drugged on images of Grizz's naked skin against his as he's entered slowly to the hilt.

Indecent thoughts so far removed from the romantic imaginings of Grizz in the past.

Indecent thoughts so far removed of what he's allowed himself to ever think about Grizz. 

It'd always been innocent love things, that would skim the surface of illicit fantasies, but he'd never plunged in.

He's learned now he's not worth innocent love things. He's not worth romance and happiness. 

So he'll steal a twisted version of it like a thief. 

This is a stolen moment because Grizz has found another and he will be a selfish, shameless bastard and take what he's owed.

To roll in the mud and dirt of this sin, marring the pale canvass of his untouched skin, stripped bare and....fucked hard.

Fuck hard until he can't remember his name.

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's...

He'll burn in hell, a thousand times over.

But it'll be worth it.

_You can have my first, because it'll always ever only be you._

_Fuck me good before I must let you go._

_You don't belong to me anymore._

_You never did._

No on else could unravel him from the inside out. 

The wild beast coils around his belly, teasing lower and lower, until--

_No!_

The exclaimed thought echoes from his lips and he feels Grizz stiffen, pulling away.

"No!" He utters it again, breath faltering, hopes its not a shout as he grabs on the damp, slick scruff of Grizz's neck, keeping him in place, tightening the hooked hold of his leg onto Grizz, pulling the older boy closer. 

He wrestles between desire and rationality. Two warring sides that long to form a white flag, treaty. 

But he submits the wild beast down with shackles, because the nameless third party, who he wants to hate but has no fault in all this doesn't deserve to hurt. 

He will not be a pawn to Grizz's games. 

There are steps they’ve forgotten, in their haste to align the symmetry of their bodies.

They needed to retrace and do right.

The trance he's in clears, and Grizz seems to agree with his quiet ruminations as he slowly, delicately extracts their limbs from each other. 

_I'll take you back home so we can talk? - Grizz_'s fingers sign with a fluid grace to the movement of his mouth. 

_Home? Why home? _

_Home, home, home, home!_

_ Fuck home! It is no home if you can't be mine!_

The shackles break and the wild beast blocks anymore sentimental and painful emotions from invading.

He'll just be torn apart.

Goads him to drown instead in the visceral reaction of his body to Grizz's. 

Wants Grizz's fingers, long, elegant and sinful, to reach for the part of him that will swallow it whole.

He almost cums.

Gritting his teeth, Sam grasps at control. The scant propriety left, dissolves because he can't keep back the moan, he's unable to gauge the loudness of, and it must be dirty and vulgar by how Grizz clenches his jaw and returns his grip on his thigh and waist, lips chasing after his, but never reaching.

The thrashing of the wind that pelts him with rain, reminds him they are outside.

In public.

On campus grounds.

They are under the cover of trees and a brutal setting no one wants to venture into, but the rain will let up soon and the sun will come out.

So Sam pushes Grizz away, by the hardness of his chest that had felt so good against his, and Grizz is reluctant but relents, stepping back with an offered hand. Sam accepts it, too willingly, because he does not know when he'll ever be able to again. Does not remove his hand to correct when Grizz laces their fingers together. 

As they run through the pouring, angry rain, he pretends there is no other girl.

Pretends there was never a Campbell, never a coercion to lie. No fight, or angry words, mean looks and tears and pain and--

Pretends their back in his bedroom in West Ham, sitting together, and everything is ok.

The elevator ride is torture, the air smothered with a lusted haze. He revels in the want that's sharp from Grizz, fixated and unwavering, their fingers still intertwined, barely a space between them. Even if it's to slake off some physical appetite, and stays surface level; if the feelings that Grizz has, no longer goes deeper than that.

He'll take it.

He's on borrowed time, so he'll take it.

Grizz stops him from stepping out the open of sliding doors when they've reached their floor, by a pull on their intertwined fingers, pushing him against the elevator wall. The doors closed once again without argument. 

This kiss, that's as all consuming, lingers and extends longer than meant. 

And Grizz has no intention to stop.

He's hopeless, arching into Grizz. The older boy traveling down to lick and suck into his neck that's surely now bruised a pretty purple he'll wear proud like a damn flag. Grizz's fingers mimic his tongue on the damp dip of Sam's back, fingers slipping under his sweater.

_You may have him in the light, but I'm the one he reaches for in the dark._

_Take me here now._

They part somehow, and Sam commends Grizz's ability for control.

But of course, he's got the upper hand.

He'll play him like a fucking fiddle. And he'll allow it.

_Strum my pain with your fingers._

When they enter their dorm room, Grizz motions for him to stay near the kitchen table, with a signed - _Wait, here_, hurrying into his room, sogged hoodie clinging to his muscled back.

Even his damn back looks fucking delicious.

Sam lowers his attention to the small puddle that's forming around his wet sneakers. He can't move even if he wanted to, rooted in place, teeth chattering from the cold wet on his skin, like a drowned scrawny rat.

Grizz returns quickly, with a stalking saunter, eyes hooded and onyx black, chest following a steady but deep up and down rhythm.

_He must have a taste for drowned rat aesthetic._

He's dried off, chocolate locks smoothed into a low curled tail, carrying a towel and some maroon over-sized shirt, clad in nothing but a pair of navy, cotton boxers, riding dangerously low. 

On his naked forearm, Sam can't miss the colored ink. It's almost fluorescent under his fixed gaze.

His mouth goes dry, as he trembles with want. 

He's never seen Grizz in this state of half dress, and his imagination was lacking because the sight is a shock to his system already on edge. The tattoo must be recent because he swore he knew every bit of Grizz's body allotted to him. 

Because--

_What the actual fuck? _

Grizz is playing with unfairrules.

Sam can only stand frozen and mute, as Grizz places the shirt and towel on the table, and with an assertive gentleness, helps him lift his arms up to pull his soaked sweater off, depositing it to fall heavy in the kitchen sink. His skin grows pebbled with goose flesh but turns into a coal, hot sear when Grizz guides his hips to shimmy out of his equally wet joggers. 

A wave of shivers ripple through him, self conscious of his mirrored bare state, grateful his boxer shorts are of a dark coloring, commanding his fucking dick to chill for a goddamn second because Grizz is burning into him with how stuttered and quick his breathing has suddenly gotten. 

Before things are given a chance to escalate, how Sam wants it to, Grizz turns to reach for the towel he's brought, gently drying Sam's wet hair with it. Firm but careful finger-tips against his scalp sedates and his eyes shut close.

He feels like crying; thinks mystery girl is one lucky bitch.

_I want to keep you, I don't want to let you go. _

_Oh God, why can't I keep him?_

He must have started to sway because a strong hold anchors him by the forearms, leading his hands for support from Grizz's naked waist, he grabs onto greedy, molds into it like wet sand. Grizz ministrations return, patting away the droplets from Sam's cheeks, the rain on his lashes.

A thumb on his bottom lip, skimming lightly. He opens his mouth to languidly lick at the offered finger.

Two can play dirty.

Grizz's nose flares like a bull's, breath heavy, as he follows Sam's tongue, his own darting out to wet his bottom lip, biting hard to steel himself. He returns his attention to the kitchen table to grab the shirt which he unfolds, revealing it's one of his old football jersey's.

_Fucking, kinky-ass bastard. Well played._

He's swimming in it once its on, but Grizz is amused and satisfied with how he must look because a softness that endears and hurts Sam's heart appears in his hazel eyes and Grizz promptly steals a quick peck on the line of his jaw, edging close to his parted lips. 

_Dress me up to your whims, play with me like a doll. _

"Sorry." But he's not sorry, eyes twinkling.

"Is this us talking?" Sam can't help the cheek that slips out. 

Grizz smirks small but it's there, and he misses their easy banter.

"No" he sasses gently and flirts, the corners of his mouth quirking up, his head shaking slightly from side to side.

They could stand like this forever, not touching, just looking and Sam would be content, but Grizz is the stronger of the too, will power and all, leading them to sit cross-legged, knees touching across each other on the weathered couch.

Damn couch, the beginning of it all.

Will it be the end of it as well?

On the way, he spots another colored ink on Grizz left shoulder blade, a permanent etch, but wills himself not to dwell on or catch its details. 

He's on sensory overload, brimmed too full he knows he might combust.

And he almost does when Grizz leans in all sudden, murmuring and signing, "Last one" lips nipping, once, twice the other side of his jaw.

So much for will power.

"I promise," he finishes off, signing but does not move back, glazed eyes fixed on his lips, so Sam ducks his head, focusing on the scattered constellation of freckles on Grizz's naked chest and shoulder. It barely helps any because his tongue wants to connect the dots, but it shuts down his impulsion and temperamental desire to kiss Grizz back for real. This time he knows he won't be able to stop or be stopped.

_Ok_. - It's a struggle, Sam can tell. Grizz's hands are unsteady and have a faint shake as he signs along with a tight lipped mouth, eyes never reverting back to their light hazel hue.

_Why did you lie? What did Campbell do to make you lie?- Wow. So_ they were going to jump right into it.

"Who's the girl your fucking? Or is it some serious love shit?" he counters, his thick tongue slurs but punctuates.

The words whip harsh with how abrupt Grizz smarts back, a flush of heat burning the plain of his cheeks.

"What girl?" Grizz's mouth is twisted, eyes knitted in confusion.

"Now who's lying?" He eggs him with teeth. He'll take anger, it's safe and predictable.

_What girl? There's no girl!_\- Grizz signs in a desperate flurry of exclaimed gestures. 

"I'm deaf, Grizz, not fucking blind!" Grizz flinches at the cutting retort, the flat of his bare belly, smooth and hard like marble, jumps but he stays close. "I saw the girl kissing up on you, climbing you like a fucking tree last night!"

The last bit almost coaxes a laugh from Grizz's frowning mouth he stills from contorting into a smile, but realization slowly dawns and distracts, "Girl....you mean GWEN?!"

"Yeah, Gwen." He spits it out with the bitter taste in his mouth. "The girl you're fucking."

"God damn, Sam! There's-- no, look at me," his jaw is grasped. Strong calloused hands, exasperated, keep him from turning away,"Gwen is a girl I met in ASL club at Notre Dame. We got really close--as friends! And she's here too on internship as an interpreter. She knows about you, Sam. God! She's fucking in love with the idea of you and me."

It's almost too fast to follow and too much to take. He doesn't know how to process or what to feel.

"Is this why..." Grizz swallows thickly before he continues, releasing his hold on Sam's jaw to sign. Sam can only guess the next words will be of weight and definition. 

_Sam, I need you to tell me what Campbell did. I need it to come from you. Before we can go forward. If that's what you want. Because I know what I want. I want--_

"Campbell didn't do anything." He interjects which Grizz meets with a furious shaking of his head.

"See I don't believe that. And I don't get why you need to still lie. Why..why I don't deserve the truth." He doesn't know either. Perhaps fragmented remains of his reflex to protect Grizz from bad shit that he knows is a consequence when his guard is down.

"Is it because of what you saw prom night? What you went through with Clark and Jason? Fair enough, I get it. I fucking hurt you back, bad and I'm sorry! God you don't even know how sorry." 

Tears are falling steady now and he feels his own start, the sight of Grizz across him blurring like water falling on glass.

"But I need you to tell me what Campbell did. Please!" Grizz begs, and Sam wants to comply with how broken he looks. Wants to scream hoarse at Campbell until he's bled from his shattered ears. 

"I need you to tell me, because I want more than some quick fuck. I want all of you. I've never stopped. I want forever. I want--"

"Campbell was going to get someone to hurt you on the field. If I didn't end things. He saw us the night we kissed in my room. Has a video of it." He'd shut his eyes tight to evade whatever pained response his statement provoked in Grizz, tripping over the words his sloppy tongue tried to expel; if it's in a wail he does not know. Grizz has sat, motionless and uninterrupting, the only tell he's received and understood Sam's concession for the truth is the firm grip on his thighs. 

"But you see, I know it would have been more than some broken bones. More than a lost scholarship, you not being able to play football any longer. I figured.." the sobs have made it difficult to finish, but Grizz forehead now pressed against his, fingers tracing the sensitive bit by his ears bolsters him to continue. 

"I figured I'd rather lose you, hurt you a little than have him hurt you more. To have him take you away from me forever would have--"

_Destroyed me. Not even Becca or a new baby could stop what would have come next._

He's shamed but it's the truth.

The shaking of Grizz's head against his cuts his thought and opens his eyes, his chin tipped up.

"He wouldn't have! I wouldn't have let him, I would have easily--"

"You don't know him like I do! I've told you things but you don't know everything! He would have found a way. He may be smaller than you, but he's cunning smart. When you least expect it..."

He collapses onto Grizz's chest, arms wrapping around his neck in a desperate act of clinging onto Grizz to shield him from Campbell's destructive clutches. The thought of all the terrible things Campbell could have done. To permanently rip Grizz from him, to make him disappear to some place he would never be able to reach is an assault on his mind, brain waves erratic and manic and a system wrought with tired. He wants to shut down into oblivion. 

They stay in this embrace, with no hurry to move, and Grizz's tangible and solid body holding him back as tight and as fiercely, grounds him. Stifles the flames of fear and panic that wants to engulf and suffocate. 

After a few moments, when sleep start to tease from the edges of his subconscious because he's forgotten how nice it was being held in Grizz's arms, a warmth radiating from him like a comforting hearth, the older boy pulls away. Yet, keeping him framed and in arms length.

"You'r body's telling me one thing, but, what do you want Sam? Do you still want me?"

"I don't--"

"Did you ever?!" How could he even ask this? But Grizz seems to catch his error, a slip of tongue without thought, perhaps still hot-headed and tempered mad by the revelations of Campbell.

His word's were being misconstrued, but he'd also lost them. Rhyme and reason was confused because his thoughts were in such disorder. Too many things were being asked and wanted and he did not know how to answer just yet.

_Please give me time. Let me breathe. But don't leave me. _

It was as if he was to speak certain words into being, want certain things, something cursed, a sleeping, dark evil he'd tucked and locked away in to the deep bowels of his mind would rise up and wreak havoc.

He could not risk it.

"No!...I just--don't know."

"Ok." Grizz accepts with no fight, must have noticed Sam battling silent adversaries that won't yield. 

"We'll take it slow."

Sam nods grateful, suddenly shy with the outcome of things and what's to follow. Clarity on what it means to go slow, what's allowed and what's not will surely be addressed as they went. Clarity on things still left unsaid and unturned will be addressed as they went. But the selflessness ingrained in his DNA brings up guilt with how Grizz must cater to his damn, fucked up, skittish psyche. He lowers his head, picking at a loose thread from the hem of Grizz's jersey, but it's lifted up once again, fingers that graze near his lips and rest to play with the unruly curls on his neck.

"I'll try but I can't promise I won't want to touch you or...or kiss you because that's all I want to fucking do. You're here with me now and it's like--I've fucking dreamed about this Sam. Didn't think I would ever get another to chance to have this." 

_Well, fucking damn._

But Grizz is man of his word and things go slow.

Excruciatingly so.

He offers to make tea as he shuffles over to his room to pull on a hoodie and Sam can't help but miss his bare chest.

Curses under his breath at not taking advantage of the moment afforded him to run his fingers against it, without fabric to hinder.

He accepts the tea that comes with nothing else but a small, but warm smile. Curses under his breath because a kiss would have made it sweeter. 

Curses under his breath when Grizz bids him a brief leave because an afternoon nap might help the headache he's gotten from the rain, and Sam hopes it's only from that.

Curses under his breath because Grizz doesn't ask for him to come with so they can share a bed and warmth and a cuddle. 

He almost wants to retract everything agreed upon. 

_Fucking damn._

He keeps the door to his room unlocked, hoping for things he's also afraid of. 

But Grizz stays away, probably long gone into his nap. A touch of bitter jealousy at how easily the older boy can turn things off pulls a groan from his lips. 

Rest eludes, tho he's weary and bone tired. He wants to sleep unbothered but unable for so long now, he's forgotten how. A incessant thrum in his nerves won't let up, and a magnetic thread connecting the succession of steps from his room to Grizz's has his muscles tensed, ready to get up, he'd need only acquiesce to the lecherous whispers of "You know you want to."

The wild beast has returned and he wants to punch it in the goddamn mouth.

After the hundredth time tossing about, he roughly lurches from his bed with a kick to his duvet that lays in a rumpled heap by the end. Runs his hands, frustrated, through his mess of curls and exits his room heading towards their shared kitchenette, deciding on toast or anything really to munch on and lull down the electric energy coursing through him.

Something with much gluten, he thinks. 

The rain had stopped, the sun starting to shine through the window by the kitchen, a little too brightly, it's heat turning the room into a sweltering sauna, and a drip of sweat falls from Sam's nape down his back. Without much thought, he pulls off Grizz's jersey he's still in, over his head, satisfied at the immediate relief his exposed skin gets as the air turns a touch bearable, attention too focused on finding anything to snack on.

He's not aware of the noise he's made when the jersey nicks the side of the toaster out of his line of sight. He's too busy on his tiptoes reaching up to the highest shelf, because this dorm was fucking built for giants, to notice the other bedroom open, the inhabitant just as restless and unable to sleep bounding forward with a swiftness to catch him because his grip has slipped from the linoleum edged shelf, seconds from bashing his skull open on the tiles below.

His breath is caught in his throat from the rush of the fall and Grizz's hard, heaving, chest, that's barreled into his back, as he's kept afloat on his feet barely touching the floor by one arm around his waist and a hand gripping his forearm.

When he thinks he'll be turned around, reprimanded for being careless or something of the sort, it's only to land him steady on his feet as he's held forward by his shoulders. Grizz seemed to be inspecting something on his back, light fingers tracing the expanse of his flushed skin.

_Shit. _

He's forgotten. 

It's the scars. Scars on his back. Raised marks documenting Campbell's history of violence.

Various circled shapes, puckered and considerably lighter than the pink tint of his pale skin. And lacerations near his hips, from a jagged edged sharp thing. Those had been especially painful.

His parents didn't know. Not even Becca. He'd hid them so well. For so long.

He pulls away with a jerk, either from reflex or the aversion for pity. Because he'll be damned if--

But Grizz keeps his steady, firm hold, lips following where fingers have touched.

"Trouble sleeping?" He nods, when he's turned around, to the trailing thumb on his cheek, wiping the lone tear that falls.

_Come lay in bed with me?- _Signing fingers and gesturing hands turn their palms up, offering for Sam to grab unto.

He'd rather this speed anyway.

Taking it slow was underrated.

Tucked into the crook of Grizz's shoulder, his bent arm pillowing Sam's cheek as they faced each other on his bed that fits them just so, Sam finally falls into a sleep, calm and sound. The white noise that's always ever been present is replaced with a soft rumbling from Grizz's chest as he hums some tune Sam wished he could hear.


End file.
